THE 

RELIGIOUS  ASPECT   OF  PHILOSOPHY 

A  CRITIQUE  OF  THE  BASES  OF  CONDUCT 
AND  OF  FAITH 


BY 

JOSIAH  ROYCE,  PH.  D. 

INSTRUCTOR  IN  PHILOSOPHY  IN  HARVARD  COLLEGE 


Der  Anbliek  giebt  den  Engeln  Starke, 
Da  Keiner  Dich  ergriinden  mag. 

GOETHE'S  Faust,  Prolog. 


BOSTON 
HOUGHTON,   MIFFLIN   AND   COMPANY 

New  York:  11   East  Seventeenth  Street 


1885 


Copyright,  1885, 
BY  JOSIAH  ROYCE. 

All  rights  reserved. 


The  Riverside  Press,  Cambridge: 
Printed  by  H.  0.  Houghton  and  Company. 


To 

$>owire&  JFrtentr, 
GEORGE    BUCHANAN    COALE, 

OF   BALTIMORE, 
I  DEDICATE   THIS  BOOK, 

IN   EARNEST   AND   GRATEFUL   RECOGNITION 

OF    HIS   KINDNESS,    OF   HIS   COUNSEL, 

AND   OF   HIS    WISDOM. 


PEEFAOE. 


THIS  book  sketches  the  basis  of  a  system  of  phi- 
losophy, while  applying  the  principles  of  this  system 
to  religious  problems.  The  form  and  order  of  the 
treatment  depend  on  the  nature  of  these  latter  prob- 
lems themselves,  and  are  not  such  as  a  system 
of  philosophy,  expounded  solely  for  its  own  sake, 
would  be  free  to  take.  The  religious  problems  have 
been  chosen  for  the  present  study  because  they  first 
drove  the  author  to  philosophy,  and  because  they,  of 
all  human  interests,  deserve  our  best  efforts  and  our 
utmost  loyalty. 

A  large  portion  of  this  discussion  seeks  to  appeal 
both  to  the  special  student  of  philosophy  and  to 
the  general  reader.  A  considerable  part,  again,  can 
with  the  very  best  of  fortune  hope  to  interest  the 
special  student  of  philosophy,  but  cannot  hope  for 
more.  The  Preface  must  therefore  tell  what  sort  of 
appeal  is  made  to  each  of  the  two  classes  of  readers. 

To  begin  with  the  general  reader,  who  may  have 
the  curiosity  to  glance  at  this  philosophic  essay,  the 


vi          •  PREFACE. 

author  must  forthwith  confess  that  while  on  the  one 
hand  he  desires  to  trouble  nobody  with  fruitless  and 
blank  negations,  and  while  his  aim  is  therefore  on 
the  whole  a  positive  aim,  yet  on  the  other  hand,  as 
he  has  no  present  connection  with  any  visible  relig- 
ious body,  and  no  sort  of  desire  for  any  such  connec- 
tion, he  cannot  be  expected  to  write  an  apology  for 
a  popular  creed.  This  confession  is  made  frankly, 
but  not  for  the  sake  of  provoking  a  quarrel,  and 
with  all  due  reverence  for  the  faith  of  other  men. 
If  the  fox  who  had  lost  his  tail  was  foolish  to  be 
proud  of  his  loss,  he  would  have  been  yet  more  fool- 
ish to  hide  it  by  wearing  a  false  tail,  stolen  mayhap 
from  a  dead  fox.  The  full  application  of  the  moral 
of  the  fable  to  the  present  case  is  moreover  willingly 
accepted.  Not  as  the  fox  invited  his  friends  to 
iniitate  his  loss,  would  the  present  writer  aim  to 
make  other  men  lose  their  faiths.  Rather  is  it  his 
aim  not  to  arouse  fruitless  quarrels,  but  to  come  to 
some  peaceful  understanding  with  his  fellows  touch- 
ing the  ultimate  meaning  and  value  and  foundation 
of  this  noteworthy  custom,  so  widely  prevalent 
among  us,  the  custom  of  having  a  religion.  If  the 
author  ends  by  stating  for  his  own  part  a  religious 
doctrine,  it  will  yet  be  seen  upon  reading  the  same 
that  a  man  could  hold  that  and  much  more  too ;  so 
that  what  is  here  said  is  rather  proposed  as  a  basis 


PREFACE.  vii 

for  a  conceivable  if  very  far  off  reconciliation,  than 
as  an  argument  to  dissuade  those  who  may  think 
that  they  can  go  further  than  the  author,  from 
proving  in  a  philosophical  fashion  whatever  they 
can  prove.  Such  people  may  manage  to  interpret 
many  of  the  negations  that  occur  in  these  pages  as 
directed  against  an  inadequate  form,  or  imperfect 
understanding,  of  their  more  elaborate  creed.  If 
they  can  do  so,  no  one  will  be  more  heartily  de- 
lighted than  the  author,  although  he  may  not  agree 
with  them. 

As  to  the  relation  of  this  book  to  what  is  called 
modern  doubt,  it  is  a  relation  neither  of  blind  obe- 
dience nor  of  unsympathetic  rejection.  The  doc- 
trine of  philosophic  idealism  here  propounded  is  not 
what  in  these  days  is  popularly  called  Agnosticism. 
Yet  doubting  everything  is  once  for  all  a  necessary 
element  in  the  organism  of  philosophic  reflection. 
What  is  here  dwelt  upon  over  and  over  again  is, 
however,  the  consideration  that  the  doubts  of  our 
time  are  not  to  be  apologetically  "refuted,"  in  the 
old  fashioned  sense,  but  that  taken  just  as  they  are, 
fully  and  cordially  received,  they  are  upon  analysis 
found  to  contain  and  imply  a  positive  and  important 
religious  creed,  bearing  both  upon  conduct  and  upon 
reality.  Not  to  have  once  thoroughly  accepted  as 
necessary  the  great  philosophic  doubts  and  problems 


Vlll  PREFACE. 

of  our  day,  is  simply  not  to  have  philosophized  as  a 
man  of  this  age.  But  to  have  accepted  these  doubts 
without  in  time  coming  to  find  the  positive  truth 
that  is  concealed  in  them,  is  to  treat  them  as  the  in- 
nocent favorite  of  fortune  in  a  fairy  tale  always  at 
first  treats  his  magic  gift.  It  is  something  common 
and  dingy,  and  he  lays  it  carelessly  away  in  his 
empty  house,  feeling  poorer  than  ever.  But  see : 
handle  it  rightly,  and  the  fairy  gift  fills  your  trans- 
figured home  with  a  wealth  of  gems  and  gold,  and 
spreads  for  you  a  wondrous  banquet.  To  the  author 
has  come  the  fancy  that  modern  doubt  may  be  some 
such  fairy  gift  as  this.  And  he  would  like  to  sug- 
gest to  some  reader  what  may  possibly  prove  the 
right  fashion  of  using  the  talisman. 

The  general  reader,  if  very  "  benevolent,"  may  be 
able  to  endure  the  "  First  Book "  of  the  present 
volume  in  its  entirety ;  but  in  the  "  Second  Book  " 
he  will  find  much  that  is  meant  only  for  the  student 
whose  interests  are  decidedly  technical.  Some  warn- 
ings are  given  in  the  text,  to  help  the  general  reader 
in  skipping.  But  perhaps  it  may  be  well  for  his 
purpose  to  confine  himself  at  once  in  this  Book  II., 
at  least  upon  the  first  reading,  to  the  following  pas- 
sages, namely :  in  Chapter  VIII.,  to  the  introductory 
remarks  and  the  first  and  the  last  sections  of  the 
chapter ;  in  Chapter  IX.,  to  the  introductory  re- 


PREFACE.  ix 

marks,  and  Sections  L,  II.,  III.,  and  V. ;  in  Chapter 
X.,  to  the  introductory  remarks,  and  Sections  I.,  II., 
and  IV.;  in  Chapter  XI.,  to  the  introductory  re- 
marks, and  the  concluding  section  only ;  and  then 
he  may  try  the  whole  of  Chapter  XII.  Thus  he 
will  not  be  troubled  by  the  technical  statement  of 
the  proof  of  our  doctrine,  and  he  will  see  the  trend 
of  our  thought,  which  may  at  least  amuse  him.  If 
he  is  then  still  curious,  he  may  take  his  own  risks 
and  look  farther. 

The  student  of  philosophy  will  find  in  this  volume 
a  doctrine  that  undertakes  to  be  in  certain  signif- 
icant respects  independent  and  original,  but  that, 
without  ceasing  to  be  the  author's  own  system, 
frankly  belongs  to  the  wide  realm  of  Post-Kantian 
Idealism.  Of  course  no  truo  lover  of  philosophy 
ventures,  when  he  calls  a  doctrine  his  own,  to  pre- 
tend to  more  than  the  very  moderate  degree  of  rel- 
ative originality  that  the  subject  in  our  day  permits ; 
and  of  course  the  author  for  his  own  part  feels  very 
deeply  how  much  what  he  has  to  offer  is  the  prod- 
uct of  what  he  has  happened  to  read  and  remember 
about  philosophy  and  its  history.  Most  of  all  he 
feels  his  debt  to  Kant ;  then  he  knows  how  much  he 
has  gained  from  Fichte,  from  the  modern  Neo-Kan- 
tians  in  Germany,  and  from  the  revivers  of  idealism 
in  recent  years  in  England  and  America.  To  Hegel 


X  PREFACE. 

also  he  has  of  course  a  decided  debt  to  acknowl- 
edge. 

There  are  in  recent  philosophical  history  two 
Hegels  :  one  the  uncompromising  idealist,  with  his 
general  and  fruitful  insistence  upon  the  great  fun- 
damental truths  of  idealism ;  the  other  the  technical 
Hegel  of  the  "  Logik,"  whose  dialectic  method  seems 
destined  to  remain,  not  a  philosophy,  but  the  idea 
of  a  philosophy.  With  this  latter  Hegel  the  author 
feels  a  great  deal  of  discontent ;  to  the  other  Hegel, 
whose  insight,  as  we  know,  was  by  no  means  inde- 
pendent of  that  of  Fichte  and  other  contemporaries, 
but  who  was  certainly  the  most  many-sided  and  crit- 
ical of  the  leaders  of  the  one  great  common  idealistic 
movement  of  the  early  part  of  the  century,  —  to  him 
we  all  owe  a  great  debt  indeed.  It  is,  however,  a 
mistake  to  neglect  the  other  idealists  just  for  the 
sake  of  glorifying  him.  And  it  is  an  intolerable 
blunder  to  go  on  repeating  what  we  may  have 
learned  from  him  in  the  awkward  and  whimsical 
speech  of  the  wondrous  and  crabbed  master.  If 
Hegel  taught  anything,  then  what  he  taught  can  be 
conveyed  in  an  utterly  non-Hegelian  vocabulary,  or 
else  Hegel  is  but  a  king  of  the  rags  and  tatters  of  a 
flimsy  terminology,  and  no  king  of  thought  at  all. 
It  is  therefore  absolutely  the  duty  of  a  man  who 
nowadays  supposes  that  he  has  any  truth  from  He- 


PREFACE.  xi 

gel  to  propound,  to  state  it  in  an  entirely  fresh  and 
individual  form.  Of  Hegelian  language  repeated  to 
us  in  place  of  Hegelian  thought,  we  have  had  by 
this  time  a  sickening  surfeit.  Let  us  therefore 
thank  men  who,  like  the  late  lamented  Professor 
Green,  have  at  last  been  free  to  speak  their  own 
thoughts  very  much  in  their  own  way ;  and  let  us  be 
glad  too  that  the  number  of  so-called  Hegelians  of 
similar  independence  is  daily  growing  greater.  The 
author,  however,  cannot  call  himself  an  Hegelian, 
much  as  he  owes  to  Hegel. 

Further  especial  acknowledgments  the  author 
wants  to  make  to  Professor  William  James,  to  Mr. 
Shadworth  Hodgson,  to  Professor  Otto  Pfleiderer, 
to  Professor  Hans  Vaihinger,  to  Professor  Otto 
Liebmann,  to  Professor  Julius  Bergmann,  to  Pro- 
fessor Christoph  Sigwart,  and  to  Mr.  Arthur  Bal- 
four,  for  the  valuable  helps  in  thought  that,  un- 
known to  them,  he,  as  a  reader  of  their  works,  has 
felt,  and  that  he  now  recognizes  as  distinctly  affect- 
ing this  book.  To  Professor  William  James  once 
more  in  particular,  and  also  to  Professor  George 
Palmer,  the  author  owes  numerous  oral  suggestions 
that  have  influenced  him  more  than  he  now  can  ex- 
actly estimate  or  fully  confess.  And  then  there 
remain  two  thinkers  to  name,  men  very  different 
from  each  other,  but  both  for  the  author  very  valu- 


Xll  PREFACE. 

able.  Of  these  one  was  among  the  first  of  the  Ger- 
man thinkers  in  the  chance  order  of  the  author's 
early  reading,  the  other  was  deeply  influential  both 
by  his  spoken  words  and  by  his  writings ;  the  former 
is  that  brilliant  and  stimulating  master  of  contra- 
dictions, Schopenhauer,  the  other  is  the  now  de- 
parted Lotze,  whose  lectures  the  author  will  never 
forget  nor  disregard,  although  what  is  here  taught 
is  remote  enough  from  most  of  Lotze's  system. 

In  outer  form  this  work  may  be  considered  by  the 
philosophic  student  as  a  sort  of  roughly  sketched 
and  very  incomplete  Phenomenology  of  the  relig- 
ious consciousness,  first  on  its  moral,  and  then  on 
its  theoretical,  side.  The  parts  of  the  argument  that 
the  author  supposes  to  contain  most  relative  origi- 
nality will  be  found  in  Book  I.,  Chapters  VI.  and 
VII.,  and  in  Book  II.,  Chapter  XI.  On  these  chap- 
ters all  else  hinges. 

The  discussion  of  the  Problem  of  Evil,  as  it  ap- 
pears in  Chapter  XII.,  is,  as  the  author  has  seen  only 
since  that  chapter  was  in  type,  very  closely  parallel 
to  part  of  the  discussion  of  the  same  question  in  the 
new  second  edition  of  Pfleiderer's  "  Religionsphilos- 
ophie."  Yet,  as  the  thoughts  of  this  new  edition  of 
Pfleiderer's  argument  were  indicated  in  his  first  edi- 
tion, although  not  so  clearly  expressed,  the  author 
claims  little  originality  here,  save  in  the  form  of 


PREFACE.  xiii 

presentation,  in  the  illustrations  used,  and  in  the 
reference  of  the  whole  to  the  arguments  of  Chapter 
XI.  This  last  matter  seems  to  him,  of  itself  indeed, 
quite  important. 

The  work  as  it  here  appears  is  an  outgrowth  of 
several  separate  lines  of  study.  The  questions  of 
the  present  Chapter  XI.  were  first  attempted  by  the 
author  in  a  thesis  for  the  Doctor's  degree  of  the 
Johns  Hopkins  University  in  1878.  The  argument 
has  since  been  essentially  altered.  Several  frag- 
ments that  are  here  used  as  organic  parts  of  the 
whole  book  have  appeared  separately,  in  various  de- 
grees of  incompleteness,  in  the  "  Journal  of  Specu- 
lative Philosophy,"  in  "Mind,"  and  elsewhere.  The 
present  form  of  the  book  has  grown  out  of  lectures 
on  religious  questions  to  the  students  of  Harvard 
College ;  but  only  a  small  portion  of  the  manuscript 
of  these  lectures  has  entered  into  the  structure  of 
the  book,  which,  for  its  own  part,  tries  to  be  no 
patchwork,  but  a  single  united,  if  incomplete,  study 
of  its  chosen  problem. 

CAMBRIDGE,  MASS.,  January  11,  1885.   ~ 


TABLE  OF  CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER  I. 

PAGE 

INTRODUCTION  ;  RELIGION  AS  A  MORAL  CODE  AND  AS 

A  THEORY. 1 

I.     The  Three  Elements  of  Religion 2 

II.     Relation  of  Religion  and  Philosophy 4 

III.  The  Essentials  of  Religious  Doctrine 6 

IV.  The  Place  of  Skepticism  in  Religious  Philosophy. .  9 

BOOK  I. 

THE  SEARCH    FOR  A  MORAL  IDEAL. 


CHAPTER   II. 

THE  GENERAL  ETHICAL  PROBLEM 17 

I.     The  Priority  of  Ideals  in  Religious  Philosophy 18 

II.     The  Fundamental  Difficulty  about  all  Ideals 19 

CHAPTER  III. 

THE  WARFARE  OF  THE  MORAL  IDEALS 32 

I.     The   Difficulty  about   the   Ideal   as   it  appears   in 

Greek  Thought 34 

II.     The  same  Difficulty  in  Christian  Morals 39 

III.  Summary  of  the  Difficulty  thus  far 47 

IV.  The  Difficulty  as  illustrated  by  the  Doctrine  of  Con- 

science    50 

V.     General  Summary  and  Skeptical  Result 58 


XVI  TABLE   OF  CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER  IV. 

PAGE 

ALTRUISM  AND  EGOISM  IN  CERTAIN  RECENT  DISCUS- 
SIONS   * 61 

I.     Illustration  of  Certain  Doctrines  about  the  Nature 

of   Altruism .    63 

II.     Is  Altruism  Disguised  Selfishness  ? 65 

III.  Inquiry  as  to  the  real  Difference  between  Altru- 

ism and  Selfishness 66 

IV.  If  Genuine  Altruism  cannot  now  be  Disguised  Self- 

ishness, can  Evolution  explain  the  Relations  of 

the  two  ? 74 

V.     Schopenhauer's  Effort  to  define  Altruism  in  Terms 

of  the  Emotion  of  Pity 85 

VI.     Further  Explanation  of  Schopenhauer's  View..  .     89 
VII.     The  Selfishness  and  Cruelty  that  often  are  the  .Re- 
sult of  Pity 94 

VIII.     The  Cruelty  of  the  Happy,  and  the  Selfishness  as- 
sociated with  active  Sympathy 100 

IX.  Rejection  of  Pity  as  the  Basis  for  a  Distinction  of 
Altruism  and  Egoism.  Negative  Result  of  the 
Chapter ,. . .  104 

CHAPTER  V. 

ETHICAL  SKEPTICISM  AND  ETHICAL  PESSIMISM 107 

I.     The  Skeptical  Motive  in  Pessimism 108 

II.     The  Skeptical  Motive  in  the  Romantic  Pessimism 

of  Modern  Poetry 110 

III.     Ethical  Skepticism  in  Mr.  Balfour's  Statement  of 

its  Positions 127 

CHAPTER  VI. 

THE  MORAL  INSIGHT 131 

I.     The  Meaning  of  Ethical  Skepticism,  and  the  Ideal 

consequently  involved  in  it 131 

II.     Answers  to  Objections   141 

III.     Application  to  the  Problem  of  Altruism 146 


TABLE  OF  CONTENTS.  xvii 

PAGE 

IV.     Selfishness  as  Illusion 149 

V.     Altruism  as  Insight 156 

VI.     The  Real  Conflict  of  the  Separate  Ideals,  and  the 

Nature  of  the  Moral  Insight 162 

CHAPTER  VII. 

THE  ORGANIZATION  OF  LIFE 171 

I.     The  Duties  of  the  First  Class , 173 

II.     The  Duties  of  the  Second  Class,  in  relation  to  He- 
donism   183 

III.  The  Worth  of  the  Individual 195 

IV.  The  Phases  of  Individualism 201 

V.     The   Universal  Will  as  aiming   at   Organization. 

Definition  of  the  Ideal 211 

VI.     Passage  to  the  Study  of  Reality 218 


BOOK   II. 

THE  SEARCH  FOR  A  RELIGIOUS  TRUTH. 


CHAPTER  VIII. 
THE  WORLD  OF  DOUBT 227 

I.  The  Fundamental  Difficulty  concerning  the  Exter- 
nal World.  Temporary  Postponement  of  the 
Discussion  of  this  Difficulty.  The  World  of  the 

Powers 228 

II.  The  Popular  Scientific  Concept  of  the  World  and 
the  Religious  Insignificance  of  the  Law  of  Evo- 
lution   238 

III.  The  Monistic  Theories  of  the  External  World  of 

the  Powers.    Metaphysical  and  Religious  Diffi- 
culties of  these  Theories 252 

IV.  Monism  and  the  Problem  of  Evil 264 

V.     Dualistic  Theism  in  the  World  of  the  Powers,  its 

Metaphysical  and  Religious  Difficulties 271 

VI.     Empirical  Theism  and  the  Design- Argument . . . .  279 
6 


XV111  TABLE   OF  CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

VII.     Religious  Insignificance  of  the  Design- Argument 

in  the  World  of  the  Powers 283 

VIII.     The  World  of  the  Powers  as  in  itself  Necessarily 

a  World  of  Doubt 286 

CHAPTER   IX. 

THE  WORLD  OF  THE  POSTULATES    291 

I.     Postulates  in  Science  and  Religion 292 

II.     The  General  Nature  and  Use  of  Postulates 297 

III.  Postulates  in  the  Notion  of  the  External  World. .  299 

IV.  Psychological  Analysis  of  the  Postulates  of  Com- 

mon Life.     Beliefs  in  Relation  to  the  Will 305 

V.  The  Postulates  of  Science  Defined.  The  Religious 
Use  of  the  Postulates.  Transition  to  a  Higher 
Point  of  View 324 

CHAPTER   X. 

IDEALISM 333 

I.  The  General  Nature  and  Religious  Uses  of  Philo- 

sophical Idealism 333 

II.  Idealism  as  an  Hypothesis  founded  on  Postulates. 
A  Modification  of  the  Berkeleyan  Hypothesis 
stated , 337 

III.  Explanation  and  Justification  of  this  Hypothesis, 

as  Simple  and  Fair.  Subordination  of  the  Pos- 
tulate of  Causation  to  other  Postulates.  Criti- 
cism of  the  Notion  of  "  Possible  Experience  ". .  354 

IV.  Difficulty  as  to  the  Nature  of  Error,  and  Transi- 

tion to  Absolute  Idealism.  Religious  Conse- 
quences anticipated 370 

CHAPTER  XI. 

THE  POSSIBILITY  OF  ERROR 384 

I.     Sketch  of  the  History  of  the  Investigation 386 

II.  The  Doctrine  of  the  Total   Relativity  of  Truth 

and  Error 390 


TABLE   OF  CONTENTS.  XIX 

PAGE 

/    III.     The  Problem  of  the  Nature  of  Error  stated 396 

IV.     Psychological  Aspect  of  the  Problem 402 

V.  The  Problem  in  Case  of  Errors  about  one's  Fel- 

low-Beings    406 

VI.     The  Problem  in  Case  of  Errors  about  Matters  of 

Experience 417 

VII.     Summary  and  Solution  of  the  Problem 420 

VIII.     Answer  to   the    Objection   that   views   Error  as 

barely  Possible 426 

IX.     Absolute  Idealism  as  the  Result  of  the  Chapter. .  431 

CHAPTER  XII. 

THE  RELIGIOUS  INSIGHT 436 

I.  General  Survey  and  Religious  Aspect  of  Philo- 
sophical Idealism  as  stated  in  the  previous  Chap- 
ter   437 

II.     The  Doctrine  of  the  Absolute  Thought  as  Perfect  441 

III.  The  Problem  of  Evil 449 

IV.  The  World  of  the  Postulates   and  the  External 

World  once  more 460 

V.     The  Conception  of  Moral  Progress 464 

VI.  Practical  Bearings  of  the  Doctrine 468 

EPILOGUE 475 


CHAPTER  I. 

INTRODUCTION  ;  RELIGION  AS  A  MORAL  CODE  AND 
AS  A  THEORY. 

Auch  beweifl'  ich,  dass  du  glaubest, 

Was  so  rechter  Glaube  heisst, 
Glaubst  wohl  nicht  an  Gott  den  Vater, 

An  den  Sohn  und  heil'gen  Geist. 

HEINE. 

INTENDING  in  the  following  pages  to  sketch  certain 
philosophic  opinions  that  seem  to  him  to  have  a 
religious  bearing,  the  author  must  begin  by  stating 
what  he  understands  to  be  the  nature  of  religion, 
and  how  he  conceives  philosophy  to  be  related  to 
religion. 

We  speak  commonly  of  religious  feelings  and  of 
religious  beliefs  ;  but  we  find  difficulty  in  agreeing 
about  what  makes  either  beliefs  or  feelings  religious. 
A  feeling  is  not  religious  merely  because  it  is  strong, 
nor  yet  because  it  is  also  morally  valuable,  n° 
because  it  is  elevated.  If  the  strength  and  the 
moral  value  of  a  feeling  made  it  religious,  patriot- 
ism would  be  religion.  If  elevation  of  feeling  were 
enough,  all  higher  artistic  emotion  would  be  relig- 
ious. But  such  views  would  seem  to  most  persons 
very  inadequate.  As  for  belief,  it  is  not  religious 
merely  because  it  is  a  belief  in  the  supernatural. 
Not  merely  is  superstition  as  such  very  different  from 


2  THE   RELIGIOUS   ASPECT    OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

religion,  but  even  a  belief  in  God  as  the  highest  of 
beings  need  not  be  a  religious  belief.  If  La  Place 
had  needed  what  he  called  "  that  hypothesis,"  the 
Deity,  when  introduced  into  his  celestial  mechanics, 
would  have  been  but  a  mathematical  symbol,  or  a 
formula  like  Taylor's  theorem,  —  no  true  object  of 
religious  veneration.  On  the  other  hand,  Spinoza's 
impersonal  Substance,  or  the  Nirvana  of  the  Bud- 
dhists, or  any  one  of  many  like  notions,  may  have, 
either  as  doctrines  about  the  world  or  as  ideals  of 
human  conduct,  immense  religious  value.  Very 
much  that  we  associate  with  religion  is  therefore 
non-essential  to  religion.  Yet  religion  is  something 
unique  in  human  belief  and  emotion,  and  must  not 
be  dissolved  into  any  lower  or  more  commonplace 
elements.  What  then  is  religion  ? 


I. 

So  much  at  all  events  seems  sure  about  religion. 
It  has  to  do  with  action.  It  is  impossible  without 
some  appearance  of  moral  purpose.  A  totally  im- 
moral religion  may  exist ;  but  it  is  like  a  totally  un- 
seaworthy  ship  at  sea,  or  like  a  rotten  bank,  or  like 
a  wild-cat  mine.  It  deceives  its  followers.  It  pre- 
tends to  guide  them  into  morality  of  some  sort.  If 
it  is  blind  or  wicked,  not  its  error  makes  it  religious, 
but  the  faith  of  its  followers  in  its  worth.  A  relig- 
ion may  teach  the  men  of  one  tribe  to  torture  and 
kill  men  of  another  tribe.  But  even  such  a  religion 
would  pretend  to  teach  right  conduct.  Religion, 
however,  gives  us  more  than  a  moral  code.  A  moral 


INTRODUCTION.  3 

code  alone,  with  its  "  Thou  shalt,"  would  be  no  more 
religious  than  is  the  civil  code.  A  religion  adds  some- 
thing to  the  moral  ^ode.  And  what  it  adds  is,  first, 
enthusiasm.  Somehow  it  makes  the  faithful  regard 
the  moral  law  with  devotion,  reverence,  love.  By 
history,  by  parable,  by  myth,  by  ceremony,  by  song, 
by  whatever  means  you  will,  the  religion  gives  to  the 
mere  code  life  and  warmth.  A  religion  not  only 
commands  the  faithful,  but  gives  them  something 
that  they  are  glad  to  live  for,  and  if  need  be  to  die 
for. 

But  not  yet  have  we  mentioned  the  element  of  re- 
ligion that  makes  it  especially  interesting  to  a  stu- 
dent of  theoretical  philosophy.  So  far  as  we  have 
gone,  ethical  philosophy  would  criticise  the  codes  of 
various  religions,  while  theoretical  philosophy  would 
have  no  part  in  the  work.  But,  in  fact,  religion  al- 
ways adds  another  element.  Not  only  does  religion 
teach  devotion  to  a  moral  code,  but  the  means  that 
it  uses  to  this  end  include  a  more  or  less  complete 
theory  of  things.  Religion  says  not  merely  do  and 
feel,  but  also  believe.  A  religion  tells  us  about  the 
thifigs  that  it  declares  to  exist,  and  most  especially  it 
tells  us  about  their  relations  to  the  moral  code  and 
to  the  religious  feeling.  There  may  be  a  religion 
without  a  supernatural,  but  there  cannot  be  a  relig- 
ion without  a  theoretical  element,  without  a  state- 
ment of  some  supposed  matter  of  fact,  as  part  of 
the  religious  doctrine. 

These  three  elements,  then,  go  to  constitute  any 
religion.  A  religion  must  teach  some  moral  code, 
must  in  some  way  inspire  a  strong  feeling  of  devo- 


4  THE   RELIGIOUS  ASPECT   OF   PHILOSOPHY. 

tion  to  that  code,  and  in  so  doing  must  show  some- 
thing in  the  nature  of  things  that  answers  to  the  code 
or  that  serves  to  reinforce  the  feeling.  A  religion 
is  therefore  practical,  emotional,  and  theoretical ;  it 
teaches  us  to  do,  to  feel,  and  to  believe,  and  it  teaches 
the  belief  as  a  means  to  its  teaching  of  the  action 
and  of  the  feeling. 

II. 

We  may  now  see  how  philosophy  is  related  to  re- 
ligion. Philosophy  is  not  directly  concerned  with 
feeling,  but  both  action  and  belief  are  direct  objects 
of  philosophical  criticism.  And  on  the  other  hand, 
in  so  far  as  philosophy  suggests  general  rules  for 
conduct,  or  discusses  the  theories  about  the  world, 
philosophy  must  have  a  religious  aspect.  'Religion 
invites  the  scrutiny  of  philosophy,  and  philosophy 
may  not  neglect  the  problems  of  religion.  Kant's 
fundamental  problems :  What  do  I  know  ?  and 
What  ought  I  to  do  ?  are  of  religious  interest  no 
less  than  of  philosophic  interest.  They  ask  how 
the  highest  thought  of  man  stands  related  to  his 
highest  needs,  and  what  in  things  answers  to  T>ur 
best  ideals.  Surely  no  one  ought  to  fear  such  ques- 
tions, nor  ought  any  philosophic  student  to  hesitate 
to  suggest  in  answer  to  them  whatever  after  due 
reflection  he  honestly  can  suggest,  poor  and  tenta- 
tive though  it  may  be.  In  fact  there  is  no  defense 
for  one  as  sincere  thinker  if,  undertaking  to  pay  at- 
tention to  philosophy  as  such,  he  willfully  or  thought- 
lessly neglects  such  problems  on  the  ground  that  he 
has  no  time  for  them.  Surely  he  has  time  to  be  not 


INTRODUCTION.  5 

merely  a  student  of  philosophy,  but  also  a  man,  and 
these  things  are  among  the  essentials  of  humanity, 
which  the  non-philosophic  treat  in  their  way,  and 
which  philosophic  students  must  treat  in  theirs. 

When,  however,  we  say  that  the  thinker  must 
study  and  revere  these  questions,  we  must  not  fancy 
that  because  of  their  importance  he  may  prejudge 
them.  Assumptions,  postulates,  a  priori  demands, 
these  indeed  are  in  all  thinking,  and  no  thinker  is 
without  such.  But  prejudice,  i.  e.  foregone  conclu- 
sions in  questionable  matters,  deliberate  unwilling- 
ness to  let  the  -light  shine  upon  our  beliefs,  all  this 
is  foreign  to  true  thought.  Thinking  is  for  us  just 
the  clarifying  of  our  minds,  and  because  clearness  is 
necessary  to  the  unity  of  thought,  necessary  to  lessen 
the  strife  of  sects  and  the  bitterness  of  doubt,  neces- 
sary to  save  our  minds  from  hopeless,  everlasting 
wandering,  therefore  to  resist  the  clarifying  process, 
even  while  we  undertake  it,  is  to  sin  against  what  is 
best  in  us,  and  is  also  to  sin  against  humanity.  De- 
liberately insincere,  dishonest  thinking  is  downright 
blasphemy.  And  so,  if  we  take  any  interest  in  these 
things,  our  duty  is  plain.  Here  are  questions  of  tre- 
mendous importance  to  us  and  to  the  world.  We 
are  sluggards  or  cowards  if,  pretending  to  be  philo- 
sophic students  and  genuine  seekers  of  truth,  we  do 
not  attempt  to  do  something  with  these  questions. 
We  are  worse  than  cowards  if,  attempting  to  con- 
sider them,  we  do  so  otherwise  than  reverently,  fear- 
lessly, and  honestly. 


THE  RELIGIOUS   ASPECT   OF   PHILOSOPHY. 


III. 

The  religious  thought  of  our  time  has  reached  a 
position  that  arouses  the  anxiety  of  all  serious  think- 
ers, and  the  interest  of  many  who  are  not  serious. 
We  are  not  content  with  what  we  learned  from  our 
fathers;  we  want  to  correct  their  dogmas,  to  prove 
what  they  held  fast  without  proof,  to  work  out  our 
own  salvation  by  our  own  efforts.  But  we  know 
not  yet  what  form  our  coming  faith  will  take.  We 
are  not  yet  agreed  even  about  the  kind  of  question 
that  we  shall  put  to  ourselves  when  we  begin  any 
specific  religious  inquiry.  People  suggest  very  va- 
rious facts  or  aspects  of  facts  in  the  world  as  having 
a  religious  value.  The  variety  of  the  suggestions 
shows  the  vagueness  of  the  questions  that  people  have 
in  mind  when  they  talk  of  religion.  One  man  wants 
to  worship  Natural  Law,  or  even  Nature  in  gen- 
eral. Another  finds  Humanity  to  be  his  ideal  object 
of  religious  veneration.  Yet  another  gravely  insists 
that  the  Unknowable  satisfies  his  religious  longings. 
Now  it  is  something  to  be  plain  in  expressing  a 
question,  even  if  you  cannot  give  an  answer.  We 
shall  do  something  if  we  only  find  out  what  it  is  that 
we  ought  to  seek.  And  the  foregoing  considerations 
may  help  us  in  this  way,  even  if  what  follows  should 
be  wholly  ineffective.  For  we  have  tried  to  give  a 
definition  that  shall  express,  not  merely  what  a 
Buddhist  or  a  Catholic  or  a  Comtist  or  an  Hegelian 
means  by  his  religion,  but  what  all  men  everywhere 
mean  by  religion.  They  all  want  religion  to  define 


INTRODUCTION.  7 

for  them  their  duty,  to  give  them  the  heart  to  do  it, 
and  to  point  out  to  them  such  things  in  the  real 
world  as  shall  help  them  to  be  steadfast  in  their  de- 
votion to  duty.  When  people  pray  that  they  may 
be  made  happy,  they  still  desire  to  learn  what  tfcey 
are  to  do  in  order  to  become  happy.  When  saints 
of  any  creed  look  up  to  their  God  as  their  only  good, 
they  are  seeking  for  guidance  in  the  right  way. 
The  savages  of  whom  we  hear  so  much  nowadays 
have  indeed  low  forms  of  religion,  but  these  relig- 
ions of  theirs  still  require  them  to  do  something,  and 
tell  them  why  it  is  worth  while  to  do  this,  and  make 
them  more  or  less  enthusiastic  in  doing  it.  Among 
ourselves,  the  poor  and  the  lonely,  the  desolate  and 
the  afflicted,  when  they  demand  religious  comfort, 
want  something  that  shall  tell  them  what  to  do  with 
life,  and  how  to  take  up  once  more  the  burdens  of 
their  broken  existence.  And  the  religious  philoso- 
phers must  submit  to  the  same  test  that  humanity 
everywhere  proposes  to  its  religions.  If  one  tries 
to  regulate  our  diet  by  his  theories,  he  must  have 
the  one  object,  whatever  his  theory,  since  he  wants 
to  tell  us  what  is  healthful  for  us.  If  he  tells  us  to 
eat  nothing  but  snow,  that  is  his  fault.  The  true 
object  of  the  theory  of  diet  remains  the  same.  And 
so  if  men  have  expressed  all  sorts  of  one-sided,  dis- 
heartening, inadequate  views  of  religion,  that  does 
not  make  the  object  of  religious  theory  less  catholic, 
less  comprehensive,  less  definitely  human.  A  man 
who  propounds  a  religious  system  must  have  a  moral 
code,  an  emotional  life,  and  some  theory  of  things  to 
offer  us.  With  less  we  cannot  be  content.  He  need 


8  THE  RELIGIOUS  ASPECT   OF   PHILOSOPHY. 

not,  indeed,  know  or  pretend  to  know  very  much 
about  our  wonderful  world,  but  he  must  know  some- 
thing, and  that  something  must  be  of  definite  value. 
To  state  the  whole  otherwise.  Purely  theoretic 
philosophy  tries  to  find  out  what  it  can  about  the 
real  world.  When  it  makes  this  effort,  it  has  to  be 
perfectly  indifferent  to  consequences.  It  may  not 
shudder  or  murmur  if  it  comes  upon  unspeakably 
dreadful  truths.  If  it  finds  nothing  in  the  world  but 
evil,  it  must  still  accept  the  truth,  and  must  calmly 
state  it  without  praise  and  without  condemnation. 
Theoretic  philosophy  knows  no  passion  save  the  pas- 
sion for  truth,  has  no  fear  save  the  fear  of  error, 
cherishes  no  hope  save  the  hope  of  theoretic  success. 
But  religious  philosophy  has  other  objects  in  addi- 
tion to  these.  Religious  philosophy  is  indeed  neither 
the  foe  nor  the  mistress  of  theoretic  philosophy.  Re- 
ligious philosophy  dare  not  be  in  opposition  to  the 
truths  that  theory  may  have  established.  But  over 
and  above  these  truths  it  seeks  something  else.  It 
seeks  to  know  their  value.  It  comes  to  the  world 
with  other  interests,  in  addition  to  the  purely  theo- 
retic ones.  It  wants  to  know  what  in  the  world  is 
worthy  of  worship  as  the  good.  It  seeks  not  merely 
the  truth,  but  the  inspiring  truth.  It  defines  for  it- 
self goodness,  moral  worth,  and  then  it  asks,  What 
in  this  world  is  worth  anything  ?  Its  demands  in 
this  regard  are  boundless.  It  will  be  content  only 
with  the  best  it  can  find.  Having  formulated  for 
itself  its  ideal  of  worth,  it  asks  at  the  outset :  Is 
there  then,  anywhere  in  the  universe,  any  real  thing 
of  Infinite  Worth  ?  If  this  cannot  be  found,  then 


INTRODUCTION.  9 

and  then  only  will  religious  philosophy  be  content 
with  less.  Then  it  will  still  ask  :  What  in  this  world 
is  worth  most  ?  It  cannot  make  realities,  but  it  is 
determined  to  judge  them.  It  cannot  be  content 
with  blind  faith,  and  demands  the  actual  truth  as 
much  as  theoretic  philosophy  demands  it ;  but  relig- 
ious philosophy  treats  this  truth  only  as  the  material 
for  its  ideal  judgments.  It  seeks  the  ideal  among 
the  realities. 

Upon  such  a  quest  as  this,  we  ask  the  reader  to  ac- 
company us  in  the  following  pages.  We  have  not 
space  to  be  exhaustive,  nor  in  fact  to  offer  much 
more  than  suggestions ;  but  we  want  the  suggestions 
to  be  explicit,  and  we  hope  that  they  may  stimulate 
some  reader,  and  may  perhaps  help  him  in  complet- 
ing his  own  trains  of  thought. 


IV. 

People  come  to  such  questions  as  these  with  cer- 
tain prejudices  about  the  method  and  spirit  of  in- 
quiry ;  and  all  their  work  may  be  hampered  by  these 
prejudices.  Let  us  say  yet  a  little  more  of  what  we 
think  as  to  this  matter.  There  are  two  extremes  to 
fear  in  religious  philosophy :  indifference  that  arises 
from  a  dogmatic  disposition  to  deny,  and  timidity 
that  arises  from  an  excessive  show  of  reverence  for 
the  objects  of  religious  faith.  Both  of  these  extreme 
moods  have  their  defective  methods  in  dealing  with 
religious  philosophy.  The  over-skeptical  man  looks 
with  impatience  on  all  lengthy  discussions  of  these 
topics.  There  can  be  nothing  in  it  all,  he  says; 


10  THE   RELIGIOUS  ASPECT    OF   PHILOSOPHY. 

nothing  but  what  Hume,  in  an  eloquent  passage, 
called  sophistry  and  delusion.  Why  spend  time  to 
puzzle  over  these  insoluble  mysteries?  Hence  his 
method  is:  swift  work,  xjlear  statement  of  known 
difficulties,  keen  ridicule  of  hasty  assumptions,  and 
then  a  burning  of  the  old  deserted  Moscow  of  the- 
ology, and  a  bewildering  flight  into  the  inaccessible 
wintry  wastes,  where  no  army  of  religious  philoso- 
phers shall  follow  him.  Now  for  our  part  we  want 
to  be  as  skeptical  as  anybody ;  and  we  personally  al- 
ways admire  the  freedom  of  motion  that  pure  skepti- 
cism gives.  Our  trouble  with  it  all,  however,  is  that, 
after  we  have  enjoyed  the  freedom  and  the  frosty  air 
of  pure  philosophic  skepticism  for  a  while,  we  find 
ourselves  unexpectedly  in  the  midst  of  philosophic 
truth  that  needs  closer  examination.  The  short  and 
easy  agnostic  method  is  not  enough.  You  must  sup- 
plement skepticism  by  philosophy ;  and  when  you 
do  so,  you  find  yourself  forced  to  accept,  not  indeed 
the  old  theology  of  your  childhood,  but  something 
that  satisfies,  oddly  enough,  certain  religious  long- 
ings, that,  as  skeptic,  you  had  carefully  tried  to  for- 
get. Then  you  find  yourself  with  what  you  may 
have  to  call  a  religious  doctrine ;  and  then  you  may 
have  to  state  it  as  we  are  here  going  to  do,  not  in  an 
easy  or  fascinating  way,  such  as  the  pure  skeptic  can 
so  well  follow,  but  at  all  events  with  some  approach  to 
a  serious  and  sustained  effort  to  consider  hard  ques- 
tions from  many  sides.  The  skeptical  method  is  not 
only  a  good,  but  also  a  necessary  beginning  of  relig- 
ious philosophy.  But  we  are  bound  to  go  deeper 
than  mere  superficial  agnosticism.  If,  however,  any 


INTRODUCTION.  11 

reader  is  already  sure  that  we  cannot  go  deeper,  and 
that  modern  popular  agnosticism  has  exhausted  all 
that  can  be  said  on  religious  questions,  then  we  bid 
him  an  immediate  and  joyous  farewell.  If  we  had 
not  something  to  say  in  this  book  that  seems  to  us 
both  foreign  to  the  popular  modern  agnostic  range 
of  discussion,  and  deeper  than  the  insight  of  popular 
modern  skepticism,  we  should  say  nothing.  The  un- 
dertaking of  this  book  is  not  to  wrangle  in  the  old 
way  over  the  well-known  ordinary  debates  of  to-day, 
but  to  turn  the  flank  of  the  common  popular  thought 
on  these  topics  altogether,  by  going  back  to  a  type 
of  philosophic  investigation,  that  is  nowadays  fa- 
miliar indeed  to  a  certain  school  of  specialists,  but 
forgotten  by  the  general  public.  In  this  type  of  in- 
vestigation, we  have  furthermore  something  to  offer 
that  seems  to  us  no  mere  repetition  of  the  views  of 
other  thinkers,  but  an  effort  to  make  at  least  one  lit- 
tle step  in  advance  of  the  thoughts  that  the  great 
masters  of  philosophy  have  given  to  us.  Yet  we 
know  indeed  that  the  range  of  any  useful  indepen- 
dent thought  in  philosophy  must  be,  in  case  of  any 
one  individual,  very  narrow. 

The  other  mood  and  its  method  remain.  It  is  the 
mood  of  excessive  reverence.  It  wastes  capital  let- 
ters on  all  the  pronouns  and  adjectives  that  have  to 
do  with  the  objects  of  religious  faith ;  but  it  fears  to 
do  these  objects  the  honor  to  get  clear  ideas  about 
them.  Now  we  respect  this  mood  when  it  appears  in 
men  who  do  well  their  life-work,  who  need  their  re- 
ligious faith  for  their  work,  and  who  do  not  feel  any 
calling  as  truth-seekers.  No  man  has  any  business 


12  THE   RELIGIOUS   ASPECT   OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

to  set  up  his  vocation  as  the  highest  one ;  and  the 
man  for  whom  truth  is  useful  in  his  actual  life-work 
as  an  inspiration,  revealed  to  him  only  in  feeling,  is 
welcome  to  his  feelings,  is  worthy  of  all  regard  from 
those  whose  vocation  is  philosophy,  and  shall  not  be 
tormented  by  our  speculations.  He  is  careful  and 
troubled  about  many  things  ;  the  world  needs  him, 
and  philosophy  does  not.  We  only  lay  claim  to  our 
own  rights,  and  do  not  want  to  interfere  with  his. 
Our  right  to  clear  thought,  we  must  insist  upon. 
For  looked  at  philosophically,  and  apart  from  the  nec- 
essary limitations  of  the  hard  worker,  all  this  dumb 
reverence,  this  vague  use  of  vague  names,  has  its  se- 
rious dangers.  You  are  reverent,  we  may  say  to  the 
man  who  regards  philosophic  criticism  as  a  dangerous 
trifling  with  stupendous  truths ;  you  are  reverent, 
but  what  do  you  reverence  ?  Have  a  care  lest  what 
you  reverence  shall  turn  out  to  be  your  own  vague 
and  confused  notions,  and  not  the  real  divine  Truth 
at  all.  Take  heed  lest  your  object  of  worship  be  only 
your  own  little  pet  infinite,  that  is  sublime  to  you 
mainly  because  it  is  yours,  and  that  is  in  truth  about 
as  divine  and  infinite  as  your  hat.  For  this  is  the 
danger  that  besets  these  vague  and  lofty  sentiments. 
Unreflected  upon,  uncriticised,  dumbly  experienced, 
dumbly  dreaded,  these,  your  religious  objects,  may 
become  mere  feelings,  mere  visceral  sensations  of 
yours,  that  you  have  on  Sunday  mornings,  or  when 
you  pray.  Of  course,  if  you  are  a  worker,  you 
may  actually  realize  these  vague  ideas,  in  so  far  as 
they  inspire  you  to  work.  If  they  do,  they  shall  be 
judged  by  their  fruits.  Otherwise,  do  not  trust  too 


INTRODUCTION.  13 

confidently  their  religious  value.  You,  individually 
regarded,  are  but  a  mass  of  thought  and  feeling. 
What  is  only  yours  and  in  you,  is  not  divine  at  all. 
Unless  you  lift  it  up  into  the  light  of  thought  and 
examine  it  often,  how  do  you  know  into  what  your 
cherished  religious  ideal  may  not  have  rotted  in  the 
darkness  of  your  emotions  ?  Once  in  a  while,  there 
does  come  to  a  man  some  terrible  revelation  of  him- 
self in  a  great  sorrow.  Then  in  the  tumult  of  an- 
guish he  looks  for  his  religious  faith  to  clothe  his 
nakedness  against  the  tempest ;  and  he  finds  per- 
haps some  moth-eaten  old  garment  that  profits  him 
nothing,  so  that  his  soul  miserably  perishes  in  the 
frost  of  doubt.  Such  a  man  has  expected  God  to 
come  to  his  help  in  every  time  of  need;  but  the 
only  god  he  has  actually  and  consciously  had,  has 
been  his  own  little  contemptible,  private  notion  and 
dim  feeling  of  a  god,  which  he  has  never  dared  fairly 
to  look  at.  Any  respectable  wooden  idol  would  have 
done  him  better  service  ;  for  then  a  man  could  know 
where  and  what  his  idol  is.  Such  is  only  too  apt 
to  be  the  real  state  of  the  man  who  regards  it  as 
profanity  to  think  clearly  and  sensibly  on  religious 
topics. 

We  claim,  then,  the  right  to  criticise  as  fearlessly, 
as  thoroughly,  and  as  skeptically  as  may  be,  the 
foundations  of  conduct  and  faith.  For  what  we  crit- 
icise  are,  at  the  outset,  our _gwn_  notion  s,  which  we 
want  to  have  conform  to  the  truth,  if  so  be  that  there 
is  any  truth.  As  for  doubt  on  religious  questions, 
that  is  for  a  truth-seeker  not  only  a  privilege  but  a 
duty ;  and,  as  we  shall  experience  all  through  this 


14  THE   RELIGIOUS   ASPECT   OF   PHILOSOPHY. 

study,  doubt  has  a  curious  and  very  valuable  place 
in  philosophy,  Philosophic  truth,  as  such,  comes  to 
us  first  under  the  form  of  doubt ;  and  we  never  can 
be  very  near  it  in  our  search  unless,  for  a  longer  or 
shorter  time,  we  have  come  to  despair  of  it  alto- 
gether. First,  then,  the  despair  of  a  thorough-going 
doubt,  and  then  the  discovery  that  this  doubt  con- 
tains in  its  bosom  the  truth  that  we  are  sworn  to 
discover,  however  we  can,  —  this  is  the  typical  philo- 
sophic experience.  May  the  memory  of  this  sugges- 
tion support  the  failing  patience  of  the  kindly  dis- 
posed reader  through  some  of  the  longer  and  more 
wearisome  stretches  of  dry  skeptical  analysis  over 
which  we  must  try  to  journey  together.  Whatever 
may  be  the  truth,  it  must  lie  beyond  those  deserts. 


BOOK  I. 

THE  SEARCH  FOR  A  MORAL  IDEAL. 


CHAPTER  II. 

THE  GENERAL  ETHICAL  PROBLEM. 

"  Certain  spirits,  by  permission,  ascended  from  hell,  and  said  to  me, 
*  You  have  written  a  great  deal  from  the  Lord,  write  something  also 
from  us.'  I  replied,  'What  shall  I  write?'  They  said,  'Write  that 
every  spirit,  whether  he  be  good  or  evil,  is  in  his  own  delight,  —  the 
good  in  the  delight  of  his  good,  and  the  evil  in  the  delight  of  his  evil.'  . 
I  asked  them,  *  What  may  your  delight  be  V  '  They  said  that  it  was  the 
delight  of  committing  adultery,  stealing,  defrauding,  and  lying.  .  .  . 
I  said,  '  Then  you  are  like  the  unclean  beasts.'  .  .  .  They  answered, 
'If  we  are,  we  are.'  "  —  SWEDENBORG,  Divine  Providence. 

"  There  's  nothing,  either  good  or  bad,  but  thinking  makes  it  so."  — 
Hamlet. 

WITH  which  of  the  two  considerations  mentioned 
in  our  introduction  shall  a  religious  philosophy  be- 
gin ?  Of  its  two  chief  considerations,  the  moral  code, 
and  the  relation  of  this  code  to  reality,  which  is  the 
one  that  properly  stands  first  in  order  ?  We  have 
already  indicated  our  opinion.  The  philosophy  of 
religion  is  distinguished  from  theoretic  philosophy 
precisely  by  its  relation  to  an  ideal.  If  possible, 
therefore,  it  should  early  be  clear  as  to  what  ideal 
it  has.  The  ideal  ought,  if  possible,  to  be  studied- 
first,  since  it  is  this  ideal  that  is  to  give  character  to 
our  whole  quest  among  the  realities.  And  so  the 
first  part  of  religious  philosophy  is  properly  the  dis- 
cussion of  ethical  problems. 


18  THE  RELIGIOUS  ASPECT    OF  PHILOSOPHY. 


The  theoretic  philosopher  might  interpose  just 
here,  and  insist  that  as  one  can  be  moral  only  in  a 
real  world,  the  philosopher  has  a  theoretical  right 
and  duty  to  point  out,  first  of  all,  wherein  consists 
the  reality  of  the  world  and  whereon  is  based  our 
assurance  of  this  reality.  Yet  this  strictly  logical 
order  we  must  decline,  in  the  present  discussion,  to 
follow.  Our  interest  is,  first  of  all,  with  the  ideal 
in  its  relation  to  human  life.  So  much  of  the  world 
of  commonplace  reality  as  we  have  to  assume  in  any 
and  every  discussion  of  the  ideal,  we  accept  in  this 
first  book  wholly  without  theoretical  question.  For 
such  questions,  in  their  relation  to  religious  philoso- 
phy, the  proper  place  will  come  later.  But  at  the 
outset  we  will  suppose  a  moral  agent  in  the  presence  . 
of  this  concrete  world  of  human  life  in  which  we  all 
believe  ourselves  to  exist.  Beyond  the  bright  circle 
of  these  commonplace  human  relations,  all  shall  for 
the  present  remain  dark  to  this  moral  agent.  His 
origin,  his  destiny,  his  whole  relation  to  nature  and  \ 
to  God,  if  there  be  a  God,  he  shall  not  at  the  outset 
know.  But  he  shall  be  conceived  as  knowing  that 
he  is  alive  in  the  midst  of  a  multitude  of  living  f el-  i 
lows.  With  them  he  is  to  have  and  to  define  and 
to  develop  certain  moral  relations.  For  his  life,  or 
for  human  life  in  general,  he  is  to  form  his  ideal. 
Then  later,  after  forming  and  striving  to  realize  this 
ideal  of  his,  he  is  to  come  to  the  real  physical  world,  1 
and  to  ask  of  it  how  it  stands  related  to  these,  his 
moral  needs.  In  the  answer  to  this  question  he  is 


THE  GENERAL  ETHICAL  PROBLEM.        19 

to  find,  if  at  all,  the  completion  of  his  religious  phi-  1 
losophy.  When  he  comes  to  this  second  stage,  which 
our  second  book  is  to  treat,  he  may  find  himself 
obliged  to  analyze  afresh  and  skeptically  the  naive 
theoretic  notions  that  he  has  possessed  concerning  na- 
ture, and  so  even  concerning  his  own  fellow-men.  But 
for  his  analysis  itself  he  will  have  a  fresher  courage, 
because  he  will  have  filled  himself  with  the  love  of 
an  ideal,  whose  realization  he  will  be  hoping  some- 
how to  find  all  through  all  the  tedious  wanderings 
of  his  theoretic  study.  If  the  order  of  his  whole 
thought  is  thus  not  the  order  of  the  truth  itself,  still 
his  little  inconsequence  in  beginning  his  religious 
philosophy  with  assumptions  that  he  proves  only  ' 
after  he  has  gone  some  distance  in  his  investigation, 
may  be  a  useful  concession  both  to  his  own  human 
weakness  and  to  the  needs  of  his  practical  nature. 

With  the  search  for  the  ideal,  then,  we  begin,  ex- 
pressly assuming,  in  this  part  of  the  first  book,  with-  * 
out  proof,  as  much  of  the  world  of  daily  life  as  may 
be  necessary  to  a  study  of  the  moral  law  in  its  ap- 
plication to  this  daily  life.     Yet,  with  this  explana- 
tion, we  are  only  at  the   beginning  of  the  troubles 
that  arise  in  examining  the  relation   between   the  ' 
basis  of  ethics  and  the  real  world.     These  troubles 
form  a  great  part  of  the  obscurity  of    moral  doc- 
trine. 

.     II. 

In  treating  of  ethical  doctrine,  it  is  common  to 
avoid  by  all  sorts  of  devices  the  main  and  most  diffi- 
cult problem  of  all.  Men  like  to  fill  half  a  volume 


20  THE  RELIGIOUS   ASPECT   OF   PHILOSOPHY. 

with  a  description  of  the  "  moral  sentiments,"  or 
with  a  panegyric  of  the  "  moral  principle  in  man,"  or 
in  these  days  especially,  with  a  great  deal  of  talk 
about  savages  and  about  the  "  evolution  of  the  moral 
sense."  Having  occupied  so  many  pages  in  enter- 
taining digressions,  when  they  come,  if  they  ever  do 
come,  to  the  central  problem,  namely,  the  nature  of 
moral  distinctions  considered  purely  as  such,  such 
writers  have  no  time  to  do  more  than  to  appeal  to 
the  common  sense  of  readers,  and  then  to  pass  on  to 
consequences.  It  seldom  occurs  to  them  that  a  de- 
scription of  the  "  moral  faculties  "  in  this  man  or  in 
that,  or  a  history  of  moral  and  immoral  notions  and 
practices  as  they  have  come  up  among  men  in  the 
order  of  evolution,  is  no  more  a  "  moral  philosophy," 
in  the  proper  sense,  than  is  a  description  of  the  coin- 
age or  of  the  products  of  any  country  or  of  the  world 
a  true  explanation  of  the  difference  between  com- 
mercial solvency  and  insolvency. 

We  for  our  part  shall  be  obliged,  however,  by  our 
limited  space,  to  aim  forthwith  at  the  heart  of  the 
problem  of  a  philosophical  ethic.  What  is  the  real 
nature  of  this  distinction  between  right  and  wrong  ? 
What  truth  is  there  in  this  distinction?  Is  this 
truth  relative  to  particular  conditions,  or  independ- 
ent thereof?  What  ideal  of  life  results?  These 
things  we  want  to  know ;  and  we  do  not  want  to 
spend  our  time  more  than  we  shall  be  obliged  to  do 
in  irrelevant  descriptions  of  the  mental  states  of  this 
or  that  man.  All  mental  states  now  interest  us  only 
in  so  far  as  we  first  see  what  logical  bearing  they 
may  have  upon  our  problem.  We  shall  have  to  de- 


THE  GENERAL  ETHICAL  PROBLEM.       21 

scribe  a  good  deal,  but  that  work  will  have  only  its 
proper  subordinate  place. 

As  for  the  main  problem  itself,  we  can  best  bring 
its  nature  home  to  ourselves  by  considering  forth- 
with some  aspects  of  an  old  and  often  neglected 
question,  namely,  the  very  question  before  referred 
to  about  the  proper  relation  of  one's  moral  ideal  to 
the  reality  that  he  may  have  recognized. 

We  are  to  form  a  moral  ideal  apart,  as  we  have 
said,  from  any  theory  of  the  physical  universe  out- 
side of  man.  But  is  this  practicable  ?  Is  not  every 
moral  theory  dependent  in  truth  on  a  theory  of  ' 
things  ?  Is  it  possible  for  us  to  make  for  ourselves 
our  ideal,  and  only  afterwards  to  go  to  the  real  world 
and  to  see  if  our  ideal  is  realized  ?  Must  not  rather 
our  ideal  be  founded,  in  the  very  nature  of  the  case, 
on  what  we  know,  or  think  we  know,  about  the 
world  ?  Is  not  then  this  whole  undertaking  of  ours 
a  blunder  ?  Is  a  rational  moral  distinction  possible 
save  through  a  knowledge  of  the  facts  about  the 
world  ?  Can  the  ideal  say  to  the  world  :  "  I  demand 
that  thou  shouldst  be  like  me  ?  "  Must  not  the  ideal 
rather  humbly  say :  "  Thus  and  thus  it  is  in  truth, 
and  therefore  I  am  what  I  am  ?  " 

The  nature  of  moral  ideals  and  distinctions  is 
plainly  involved  just  here.  We  must  look  closely 
at  these  questions  ;  for  to  answer  them  aright  is  to 
answer  the  fundamental  questions  of  all  ethical  phi- 
losophy. 

To  understand  then  more  justly  the  nature  of  this 
difficulty,  let  us  consider  more  closely  the  two  possi- 
ble answers  to  the  foregoing  questions.  Let  us  call 


22  THE  RELIGIOUS   ASPECT   OF   PHILOSOPHY. 

a  man  who  insists  in  spite  of  all  upon  going  to  the 
real  world,  to  find  there  in  some  way  the  sole  basis 
for  his  ideal  distinctions  between  good  and  evil,  an 
ethical  realist.  Let  us  on  the  other  hand  call  him 
who  would  somehow  demonstrate  if  he  could  some 
ideal  as  the  true  and  only  moral  ideal,  without  in  any 
wise  making  it  depend  upon  physical  reality,  a  moral 
idealist.  Let  us  then  let  the  two  parties  discuss,  in 
their  opposing  ways,  the  question  at  issue.  Let  us 
hear  their  views  briefly  stated  and  argued.  First  the 
view  of  the  extreme  ethical  realists  :  "  Go  to  real- 
ity," they  say,  "  and  to  whatever  reality  you  need  to 
consider.  Thence  derive  your  notion  of  duty.  Mo- 
rality must  not  be  built  in  the  air,  but  on  a  solid 
foundation  of  natural  fact.  Your  moral  doctrine 
may  have  to  depend  upon  all  that  you  can  find  out 
about  the  universe."  —  On  the  other  hand  we  have 
the  idealistic  doctrine :  "  Morality,"  say  the  sup- 
porters of  this  view,  "  is  for  the  first  an  ideal.  From 
reality  one  learns  the  relations  that  are  to  be  judged 
by  the  ideal,  but  cannot  by  any  searching  find  the 
ideal  itself.  From  reality  one  can  learn  the  means ; 
the  End  of  action  is  an  Ideal,  independent  of  all  real- 
ity save  the  bare  existence  of  our  choice  of  this  End. 
As  Prometheus  defied  Zeus,  so  the  moral  conscious- 
ness could  and  must  defy  the  forces  of  nature  in  case 
they  made  the  ideal  forever  hopeless.  If  the  good 
be  unattainable,  that  makes  it  no  less  the  good.  If 
the  existent  world  were  the  worst  world  imaginable, 
it  would  not  be  justified  by  the  mere  fact  that  it  was 
the  real  world.  Ideals  must  be  realized  in  so  far  as 
we  can  realize  them,  but  what  can  be  realized  need 


THE  GENERAL  ETHICAL  PROBLEM.       23 

not  therefore  turn  out  to  be  the  ideal.  The  judg- 
ments :  This  is,  and,  This  is  good,  are  once  for  all 
different ;  and  they  have  to  be  reached  by  widely  dif- 
ferent methods  of  investigation."  —  Such  are  the  two 
opposing  views.  We  cannot  yet  repeat  in  detail  the 
arguments  for  each,  but  we  can  suggest  a  few  of 
them. 

"  See,"  says  the  supporter  of  the  first  view,  "  how 
absurd  it  is  to  evolve  moral  theories  out  of  one's 
inner  consciousness.  What  happens  to  such  theories  ? 
Either  nature  favors  them,  and  then  they  survive  in 
the  struggle  for  life,  or  they  are  unequal  to  the  tasks 
of  the  real  world,  and  then  their  supporters  go  mad, 
or  die.  But  in  the  first  case  they  are  merely  such 
theories  as  could  have  been  much  better  reached  by 
a  process,  not  of  guessing  at  truth,  but  of  study- 
ing nature's  laws.  In  the  second  case,  the  result  is 
enough  for  common  sense  people.  The  moral  theory 
that  is  destined  to  die  out  for  want  of  supporters  can 
hardly  triumph  over  more  useful  opinions.  If  we 
want  a  moral  theory,  we  must  therefore  consider  what 
kind  of  action,  what  rule  of  life,  wins  in  the  battle 
of  existence,  and  tends  most  to  outlive  its  rivals. 
That  rule  is  the  one  destined  to  become  universal." 

The  maintainers  of  the  second  view  are  ready  with 
their  answer.  "  What  sort  of  morality  is  this?"  they 
say.  "  Is  this  the  morality  of  the  martyrs  ?  Is  this 
an  ideal  that  can  satisfy  us  ?  The  preservation  of 
truly  valuable  life  may  indeed  be  an  end  in  itself, 
and  therefore  an  action  that  tends,  on  the  whole,  to 
destroy  rather  than  to  save  such  life  may  be  bad  from 
any  point  of  view ;  but  the  moral  thinker  is  not,  on 


24  THE   RELIGIOUS  ASPECT   OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

that  account,  bound  to  choose  a  code  that  will  make 
its  believers  survive.  The  believers  are  not  all  who 
are  affected  by  obedience  to  the  code,  and  it  may  be 
the  believer's  place  to  be  sacrificed,  either  because 
his  life  is  worth  less  than  his  ideal,  or  because  the 
unbelievers  may  somehow  be  bettered  through  his 
death.  And,  in  general,  what  would  be  the  conse- 
quence of  the  consistent  following  out  of  the  prin- 
ciple that  the  true  goal  is  conformity  to  reality  ? 
Assume  that,  for  instance,  a  man  in  society  is  to  reg- 
ulate his  actions  solely  according  to  the  demands 
that  society  as  a  real  power  makes  upon  him,  in  view 
of  his  place  in  the  social  organism,  and  that  morality 
thus  expresses  simply  the  requirements  that  the  in- 
dividual must  meet  if  he  is  to  remain  a  successful 
member  of  this  social  organism.  Then,  to  get  your 
moral  code,  you  are  to  examine  the  facts  of  social 
life.  You  are  to  see,  for  example,  what  each  man 
must  nowadays  do  if  he  is  to  be  tolerable  to  his 
fellows.  You  will  find  something  of  this  sort :  It 
will  not  do  for  him  to  kill  his  fellows,  or  to  steal 
from  them,  or  openly  to  insult  them.  It  will  be  un- 
profitable for  him  to  be  caught  in  cheating  them,  or 
in  lying  to  them.  He  will  do  well  to  help  them  as 
far  as  his  means  allow,  and  so  to  get  a  reputation 
for  kind-heartedness  and  public  spirit,  as  well  as  for 
strict  integrity.  For  such,  at  least  in  our  society, 
are  some  of  the  requisite  or  useful  kinds  of  adjust- 
ment to  our  environment.  On  these  is  founded  our 
moral  code,  if  it  is  to  be  founded  on  realit}^  alone. 

"  But  these  requirements  are  not  equally  good  in 
all  societies.     Once  a  power  to  kill  certain  kinds  of 


THE  GENERAL  ETHICAL  PROBLEM.       25 

people  was  a  necessary  condition  to  happy  social  life. 
A  reputation  for  fearlessness,  for  prowess,  for  mili- 
tary skill,  for  a  certain  kind  of  cunning,  for  perfect 
willingness  to  take  your  weaker  enemy's  property ; 
all  this  was  a  part  of  the  necessary  adjustment  to 
one's  environment.  Was  all  this  then  for  that  soci-  • 
ety  true  morality?  If  morality  were  the  body  of 
rules  governing  successful  adjustment  to  the  social 
environment,  then  morality  would  be  relative  to  the 
environment,  and  would  vary  with  it.  So  even  now 
such  rules  vary  with  one's  social  position.  Minis- 
ters of  religion  are  considered  to  be  best  adjusted  to 
the  environment  if  they  are  outwardly  meek,  save 
when  defending  their  creeds  against  heretics.  But 
politicians  are  best  adjusted  when  they  are  aggres- 
sive and  merciless.  A  poet  or  artist  is  best  adjusted 
if  he  has  a  reputation  for  very  ideal  and  impersonal 
aims,  and  he  can  then  even  afford  to  leave  his  debts 
unpaid  ;  but  a  business  man  must  be  very  concrete 
in  behavior,  severely  definite  in  his  dealings  with  his 
fellows.  And  so  runs  the  world  away.  Find  your 
place,  and  farm  it  cleverly,  for  that  is  the  whole 
duty  of  man. 

"  Such  would  be,"  say  our  idealists,  "  the  conse- 
quences of  looking  simply  to  reality  for  a  definition 
of  the  moral  code.  There  would  no  longer  be  a  dif- 
ference between  morality  and  cleverness.  Practical 
skill  in  the  art  of  living  is  what  survives  in  this 
world  :  and  if  it  is  survival,  or  tendency  to  survival, 
that  distinguishes  a  true  from  a  false  moral  code, 
then  universal  cleverness  as  a  moral  code  would  on 
the  whole  tend  to  survive,  with  its  adherents." 


26  THE  RELIGIOUS  ASPECT   OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

But  a  realistic  opponent  is  not  thus  silenced. 
"  Such  caricatures,"  he  insists,  "  do  not  fairly  repre- 
sent my  doctrine."  He,  too,  has  an  ideal  but  it  is 
wholly  dependent  on  reality.  What  he  means  by 
conformity  to  reality  as  the  foundation  of  a  moral 
code  is  properly  expressed  by  the  more  thoughtful 
advocates  of  the  doctrine  of  evolution.  "  Adjust- 
ment to  one's  real  surroundings  is  always,"  they  say, 
"  one  very  important  element  in  morality.  But 
there  are  higher  and  lower  forms  of  adjustment. 
Cannibals,  or  conquerors,  or  bad  politicians,  may  be 
sufficiently  adjusted  to  their  environment  to  be  mo- 
mentarily successful;  but  true  philanthropists  and 
truly  great  statesmen  are  better  than  they,  since  the 
statesmen  and  philanthropists  have  a  higher  form  of 
adjustment  than  have  the  others,  and  are  thus  higher 
in  the  scale  of  progress.  There  is  in  the  world  a 
constant  evolution  of  higher  out  of  lower  form^.of 
life.  This  applies  also  to  society.  And  on  this  fact 
of  evolution  depends  the  true  morality.  The  ideal 
morality  is  that  form  of  adjustment  of  the  social 
man  to  his  environment  towards  which  society  in  its 
progress  forever  tends."  How  then  shall  we  define 
our  moral  code  ?  "  Why,  once  more,"  says  the  evo- 
lutionist, "  by  the  facts.  Do  not  make  your  code 
first  and  then  judge  the  world.  You  will  do  well 
to  accept  the  universe  even  if  you  did  not  make  it. 
But  examine  the  world  to  see  in  what  way  it  is  tend- 
ing. Then  conform  yourself  to  that  tendency  ;  try 
to  hasten  the  realization  of  the  coming  ideal  perfec- 
tion. Progress  does  not  depend  on  you,  but  you  will 
do  well  to  assist  progress.  So,  by  experience,  we 


THE   GENERAL   ETHICAL   PROBLEM.  27 

are  to  find  the  direction  in  which  society  is  moving, 
we  are  to  discover  the  goal  toward  which  this  move- 
ment tends,  and  this  object  of  life,  once  formulated, 
is  to  give  us  our  moral  code." 

Again,  however,  the  idealist  objects.  This,  he 
admits,  is  a  view  higher,  no  doubt,  than  the  preced- 
ing ;  but  is  it  a  clear  and  consistent  view  ?  Will  it 
bear  criticism  ?  In  one  respect,  as  appears  to  him, 
it  fails  badly.  However  certain  and  valuable  the 
facts  about  evolution  may  be,  the  theory  that  founds 
morality  wholly  upon  these  facts  of  evolution  is  de- 
fective, because  it  confuses  the  notion  of  evolution  » 
with  the  notion  of  progress,  the  conception  of  growth 
in  complexity  and  definiteness  with  the  conception 
of  growth  in  moral  worth.  The  two  ideas  are  not . 
necessarily  identical.  Yet  their  identity  is  assumed 
in  this  theory.  How  does  it  follow  that  the  state 
toward  which  a  physical  progress,  namely,  evolution, 
tends,  must  be  the  state  that  is  to  meet  with  moral 
approval  ?  This  is  not  to  be  proved  unless  you  have 
already  done  the  very  thing  that  the  doctrine  of  evo- 
lution wishes  to  teach  you  to  do,  that  is,  unless  you 
have  already  formed  a  moral  code,  and  that  hide-  / 
pendently  of  what  you  know  of  the  facts  of  natural  ^ 
evolution.  Why  is  the  last  state  in  an  evolution 
better  than  the  former  states  ?  Surely  not  because 
it  is  the  last  stage,  surely  not  because  it  is  physically 
more  complex,  more  definite,  or  even  more  perma- 
nent ;  but  solely  because  it  corresponds  to  some  ' 
ideal  that  we  independently  form.  Why  should  my 
ideal  necessarily  correspond  with  reality  ?  Why 
should  what  I  approve  turn  out  to  be  that  which  ex- 


28  THE   RELIGIOUS   ASPECT   OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

ists  ?  And  why,  if  any  correspondence  is  to  exist, 
should  that  particular  bit  of  reality  that  comes  at  the 
end  of  a  physical  process  called  evolution  be  just 
the  one  bit  that  is  to  answer  my  ideal  demands  ?  It 
will  be  very  satisfactory  if  such  correspondence  be- 
tween the  real  and  the  ideal  is  found  to  result ;  but 
how  can  I  know  beforehand  that  it  must  result  ? 

Evolution  and  progress :  what  do  the  terms  re- 
spectively mean  ?  Evolution,  we  learn,  is  an  increase 
in  the  complexity,  definiteness,  individuality  and 
organic  connection  of  phenomena.  But  progress  is 
any  series  of  changes  that  meets  with  the  constantly 
increasing  approval  of  somebody.  The  growth  of  a 
tree  or  of  a  thistle  is  an  evolution.  The  climbing  of 
a  hill  for  some  purpose  may  throughout  be  a  prog- 
ress. Evolution  may  or  may  not  meet  with  the  ap- 
proval of  anybody ;  and  a  pessimist  might  fully 
accept  some  proposed  law  of  evolution.  But  unless 
,  there  is  some  approval  from  some  source,  we  have  • 
*  no  progress.  How  thoughtless  then  it  is,  our  idealist 
,  insists,  to  confound  such  different  notions.  But  is 
a  case  of  evolution  ever  a  process  of  degeneration  ? 
Certainly.  You  want  to  eat  asparagus  before  it  is 
full  grown.  Hence  every  moment  of  its  evolution 
after  a  certain  point  is  for  you  distinctly  a  degenera- 
tion. You  want  the  potatoes  in  your  cellar  to  keep 
fresh.  If  they  sprout,  a  process  of  evolution  has  be- 
gun,  but  every  moment  of  it  is  for  you  the  reverse 
v>"  of  progress.  The  egg  that  begins  to  incubate  is  in 
full  course  of  evolution ;  but  what  if  it  is  wanted 
for  market?  Might  not  the  evolution  of  the  whole 
world  conceivably  be  for  the  moral  consciousness 


THE  GENERAL  ETHICAL  PROBLEM.        29 

what  such  cases  of  evolution  are  for  the  purposes  of 
ordinary  life? 

"But,"  the  realist  may  say,  "in  fact  the  world 
does  grow  better.  The  course  of  evolution  is  on  the 
whole  a  progress."  "  Be  it  so,"  the  idealist  answers,^ 
"  but  how  can  we  know  it  ?  Only  by  first  setting 
up  our  moral  ideal,  and  then  comparing  the  facts' 
with  this  ideal.  If  we  know  what  we  mean  by  bet- 
ter, we  can  judge  whether  the  world  is  growing 
better.  But  we  may  not  pretend  to  determine  what 
is  better  by  simply  observing  how  the  world  grows. 
Growth  and  improvement  are  not  identical  ideas. 
One  may  grow  while  growing  ever  worse." 

And  thus  a  moral  code,  according  to  our  idealist, 
does  not,  as  a  code,  depend  on  physical  facts ;  tells 
us  nothing  of  what  does  exist,  but  tells  us  solely 
what  ought  to  exist.  If  the  ideal  either  does  exist, 
or  some  day  will  exist,  so  much  the  better ;  but 
through  all  the  changes  of  fate  the  terrible  ought 
remains,  and  judges  fearlessly  the  world,  whether  it 
be  good  or  whether  it*  be  evil.  But  here  the  realist,  «• 
to  whom  the  moral  code  that  is  not  built  on  natural 
fact  is  just  a  dream,  interposes  what  shall  just  here 
be  his  final  objection.  "  Be  it  so,"  he  says,  "  judge 
after  your  heart's  desire  ;  but  remember  this,  that , 
some  other  idealist  beside  you  will  be  judging  the 
world  in  his  own  way,  after  what  will  seem  to  you 
the  folly  of  his  heart,  and  his  judgment  and  yours 
will  differ,  as  the  dreams  of  any  two  dreamers  must  ^ 
differ.  Did  Plato's  ideal  agree  with  Paul's  ?  or  did 
Byron  judge  the  world  after  the  same  fashion  as 
Wordsworth?  Even  so  in  the  present  day  the 


30  THE   RELIGIOUS  ASPECT   OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

ideals  war  their  wars,  shadowy  struggles,  such  as  one 
would  expect  the  tedious  ghosts  of  Ossian's  heroes 
to  carry  on  in  their  cloudy  cars ;  but  reality  will 
never  be  one  whit  the  wiser  for  all  such  deeds. 
For  when  you  forsake  the  real  world  you  have  no 
basis  left  for  your  ideals  but  individual  caprice, 
and  every  idealist  will  be  his  own  measure  of  all 
things,  and  an  elastic  measure  at  that." 

To  this,  how  can  the  idealist  answer  ?  Only,  if  at 
all,  by  the  fact  of  his  success  in  establishing  such  a 
criterion  as  shall  be  independent  of  his  own  caprice, 
without  being  realistic. 

We  have  let  the  contending  doctrines  fight  some 
part  of  their  old  battles  over  again.  How  shall  we 
decide  between  them?  Alas!  the  decision  is  the 
whole  labor  of  founding  a  moral  doctrine.  We  have 
not  yet  seen  deeply  enough  into  their  opposition. 
They  may  both  be  one-sided.  The  truth  may  lie  in 
the  middle.  But  as  yet  we  have  no  right  to  dog- 
matize. This  capriciousness  in  the  choice  of  ideals 
seems  a  grave  defect  in  a  moral  system ;  we  cannot 
submit  to  the  objection  that  our  boasted  ideal  is  just 
our  whim.  Yet  how  shall  we  escape  this  ?  Equally 
unsatisfactory  it  seems  to  say :  "  I  believe  in  such 
and  such  ideal  solely  because  I  see  it  realized." 
That  is  too  much  like  saying,  "  Might  is  right." 
And  thus  we  should  come  to  an  equal  capriciousness 
on  this  side ;  for  if  might  makes  right,  then  another 
and  opposing  might,  if  triumphant,  would  make  an- 
other and  opposing  right.  And  in  this  wise  there 
would  be  no  true  distinction  at  all  between  right  and 
wrong.  There  seems  in  fact  so  far  only  an  acciden- 


THE  GENERAL  ETHICAL  PROBLEM.       31 

tal  distinction.  This  ideal  or  that  is  the  highest  be- 
cause somebody  chances  to  choose  it  for  his,  or  be- 
cause the  physical  world  chances  to  realize  it.  This 
is  a  perfectly  empty  distinction. 

But  difficulties  must  not  discourage  us  so  early  in 
the  day.  The  world  has  talked  of  these  matters  be- 
fore. Let  us  turn  to  the  history  of  some  of  the  spec- 
ulations about  the  ideal.  They  may  suggest  some- 
thing to  us. 


CHAPTER  III. 

THE   WARFARE   OF   THE   MORAL   IDEALS. 

Sure,  if  I  find  the  Holy  Grail  itself, 
It  too  will  fade,  and  crumble  into  dust. 

TENNYSON,  Holy  Grail. 

The  spirits  I  have  raised  abandon  me, 
The  spells  which  I  have  studied  baffle  me  — 
The  remedy  I  recked  of  tortured  me. 
I  lean  no  more  on  superhuman  aid. 

BYRON,  Manfred. 

WE  are  yet  without  an  ideal,  and  as  we  come 
nearer  to  our  task,  its  difficulties  increase.  We  have 
described  above  the  remarkable  position  in  which 
every  moral  idealist  finds  himself.  He  says  that 
his  moral  doctrine  is  to  be  more  than  a  mere  bit  of 
natural  history.  He  wants  to  find  out  what  ought 
to  be,  even  if  that  which  ought  to  be  is  not.  Yet  when 
some  man  says  to  him :  "  Thy  ideal  is-  thus  but  thy 
personal  caprice,  thy  private  way  of  looking  at 
things,"  he  does  not  want  to  assent.  He  wants  to 
reply :  "  My  ideal  is  the  true  one.  No  other  rational 
ideal  is  possible."  Yet  to  do  this  he  seems  to  need 
again  some  external  support  in  reality.  He  seems  to 
require  some  authority  based  upon  facts.  He  must 
somewhere  find  his  ideal  in  the  world  of  truth,  ex- 
ternal to  his  own  private  consciousness.  He  must 
be  able  to  say  :  "  Lo,  here  is  the  ideal !  "  He  must 


THE   WARFARE   OF   THE   MORAL   IDEALS.  33 

be  able  to  show  it  to  us,  so  that  we  shall  see  it  to  be 
more  than  his  whim.  But  thus  he  is  in  danger  of 
forsaking  his  idealism.  His  position  so  far  has  there- 
fore seemed  to  us  an  uncertain  one.  We  have  felt 
the  force  of  his  needs ;  but  we  have  not  been  able  to 
see  as  yet  just  how  they  are  to  be  satisfied.  The 
satisfaction  of  them  would  in  fact  be  a  complete 
ethical  doctrine.  And  the  foundation  of  such  a  doc- 
trine is  just  what  we  here  are  seeking. 

It  is  incumbent  upon  us  yet  further  to  show  how 
the  search  for  a  moral  ideal  has  in  the  past  been 
hindered  by  the  weight  of  this  doubt  about  the  exact 
relation  of  the  real  and  the  ideal.  The  controversy 
that  the  last  chapter  considered  is  a  controversy  end- 
lessly repeated  in  the  history  of  moral  doctrines. 
Everywhere  we  find  a  moral  ideal  maintained  by  some 
devoted  idealist  as  the  one  perfectly  obvious  aim  for 
human  life.  Everywhere  there  stands  over  against 
this  ideal  some  critic  who  says :  "  The  choice  of  this 
aim  for  life  is  an  accident.  I  reject  this  boastful 
ideal.  For  where  in  reality  is  found  the  firm  basis 
of  fact  on  which  the  ideal  is  founded  ?  "  Then  pos- 
sibly the  idealist,  relaxing  the  rigor  of  his  idealism, 
points  out  in  the  external  world  some  real  or  myth- 
ical support  for  his  ideal.  And  thereupon  either  his 
critics  reject  the  creed  about  the  external  world  thus 
offered  to  them,  or  they  deny  the  moral  force  of  the 
supposed  realities,  or,  again,  themselves  assuming  an 
idealistic  attitude,  they  reproach  the  idealist  with  his 
unworthy  desertion  of  "his  own  high  faith,  in  that  he 
has  yielded  to  realistic  demands,  and  has  founded 
the  lofty  Ought  on  the  paltry  Is.  And  thus  the  con- 


34  THE   RELIGIOUS  ASPECT   OF   PHILOSOPHY. 

troversy  continues.  Often  it  seems  to  us  that  the 
struggle  must  be  endless.  At  all  events  we  must 
here  look  at  some  of  its  phases. 


I. 

In  the  days  of  the  Sophists,  Greek  thought  had 
reached  its  first  great  era  of  ethical  skepticism.  This 
skepticism  was  directed  against  the  ideals  of  popular 
morality.  "  They  are  not  self-evident  and  necessary 
ideals,"  said  in  substance  the  Sophists.  "  They  are 
conventions.  They  are  private  judgments."  The 
popular  ideals  were  of  course  popularly  defended 
against  such  assaults  by  the  use  of  the  national  re- 
ligion. "The  gods  made  these  distinctions,"  it  is 
replied.  "  The  gods  are  able  to  enforce  them ;  there- 
fore, fear  the  gods." 

Skepticism  had  two  answers  to  this  defense.  The 
one  answer  was  simple  :  "  Who  knows  whether  there 
are  any  gods,  or  what  the  gods,  if  they  exist,  may 
choose  to  do  ?  "  The  other  answer  was  more  subtle, 
because  it  really  expressed  in  skeptical  guise  a  new 
form  of  moral  idealism.  It  is  best  preserved  to  us 
in  a  fine  passage  in  the  second  book  of  Plato's  Re- 
public. Here  the  young  men,  Glaucon  and  Adei- 
mantos,  confess  that  certain  sophistic  objections  to 
the  reality  of  moral  distinctions  are  deeply  puzzling  to 
themselves.  They  ask  Socrates  to  discuss  the  matter 
in  some  such  fashion  as  to  remove  these  doubts. 
They  sum  up  the  doubts  in  substance  as  follows : 
Grant  that  the  gods  are  of  irresistible  might,  and 
that  they  are  disposed  to  enforce  some  moral  law ; 


THE  WARFARE  OF   THE  MORAL  IDEALS.  35 

still  does  that  fact  give  any  true  distinction  between 
good  and  evil  as  such  ?     For  whoever  urges  us  to  do 
right  merely  to  get  the  favor  of  the  gods,  urges  us 
in  reality  just  to  do  what  is  prudent.    Such  doctrines    '  I 
make   justice  not  desirable  in  itself,  but  desirable    )j 
solely  for  what  it  brings  in  its  train.    And  thus  there 
would  be  no  difference  between  good  and  evil  as  such, 
but  only  between   what   brings    reward   and   what  ^ 
brings  punishment.    "  Therefore,  O  Socrates,"  they 
in  effect  say,  "  do  thou  defend  for  us  justice  in  itself, 
and  show  us  what  it  is  worth  in  itself,  and  how  it  is 
different  from  injustice.     But  put  us  not  off  with 
stories  about  reward  and  punishment."     Such  is  a 
brief  summary  of  their  two  speeches. 

No  better  could  either  the  need  or  the  difficulty 
of  the  task  of  moral  idealism  be  set  forth  than  in 
these  eloquent  statements.  How  does  Plato  lay  the 
ghosts  that  he  has  thus  raised  ?  How  does  he  give 
an  independent  foundation  to  the  ideal  of  justice  ? 
He  surely  felt  how  hard  a  problem  he  was  under- 
taking. He  has,  in  fact,  attempted  several  answers 
to  it.  But  the  main  answer,  given  in  the  Repub- 
lic itself  is  insufficient,  though  noble.  This  answer* 
is,  in  effect,  that  the  properly  balanced,  fully  and 
harmoniously  developed  soul,  absorbed  in  the  con- 
templation of  eternal  truth,  cannot  possibly  desire 
injustice ;  that  only  the  tyrannical  soul,  in  which 
the  desires  have  the  upper  hand,  where  nothing  is 
secure,  whose  life  is  like  the  life  of  an  ill-governed 
or  even  anarchic  community,  tumultuous,  wretched, 
helpless  before  passion,  only  such  a  soul  can  desire 
injustice.  Injustice,  then,  means  desire  for  discord,  )  f 


36  THE   RELIGIOUS   ASPECT    OF   PHILOSOPHY. 

it  means  the  victory  of  the  desires  over  the  reason, 
it  is  inconsistent  with  the  life  of  the  soul  that  is 
given  to  blessed  contemplation  of  the  eternal  ideas. 
For  such  a  blessed  soul  its  blessedness  is,  in  the  fine 
phrase  that  Spinoza  long  afterwards  created,  not  the 
reward  of  virtue,  but  virtue  itself ;  so  that  such  a 
soul  will  not  do  the  right  as  a  means  by  which  it 
may  procure  the  blessed  contemplation  of  the  eter- 
nal, but,  being  engaged  in  this  blessed  contempla- 
tion, it  is  thereby  enabled  to  do  right. 

But  to  the  wicked  soul  of  the  unjust  man  Plato 
seemingly  has  no  inducement  to  offer  in  order  to  per- 
suade it  to  become  just,  save  the  eloquent  statement 
of  the  pains  that  accompany  injustice,  the  picture  of 
the  warfare  of  desires,  the  proof  of  the  wretched  in- 
stability and  of  the  possibly  eternal  misery  in  which 
the  tyrannical  soul  must  live.  And  thus  Plato  him- 
self would  be  in  so  far  open  to  the  objection  that  his 
Glaucon  and  Adeimantos  had  made  to  all  previous 
moralists,  namely,  that  they  never  gave  a  reason 
why  justice  in  itself  was  to  be  chosen,  but  always 
made  justice  desirable  by  reason  of  the  rewards  that 
result  from  it.  For  Plato's  view,  as  for  that  of  less 
ideal  moralists,  the  unjust  man  should  seek  to  be- 
come just  because,  until  he  does  become  just,  he  will 
be  wretched.  Can  no  other  basis  for  the  virtue  of 
justice  be  found  save  this  one  ?  If  none  can  be 
found  save  this,  then  whenever  a  soul  exists  that 
prefers  the  tumult  of  desire,  with  average  success  in 
injustice,  to  the  solemn  peace  of  the  contemplation 
of  ideal  good  apart  from  the  satisfaction  of  sensuous 
desires,  for  that  soul  Plato's  argument  will  be  worth- 


THE   WARFARE   OF   THE   MORAL   IDEALS.  37 

less.  Such  a  tyrannical  nian  will  delight  to  remain 
a  tyrant,  and  that  will  be  the  end  of  life  for  him. 

The  suggestiveness,  the  deeper  significance  of  this 
Platonic  doctrine,  we  do  not  deny.  But,  as  it  stands, 
the  doctrine'  is  not  complete  nor  consistent.  For 
Plato  himself  has  given  us  as  the  support  for  his 
ideal,  a  fact,  or  a  supposed  fact,  of  human  nature. 
A  moral  skeptic  will  deal  with  it  as  Glaucon  and 
Adeimantos  had  dealt  with  the  popular  morality. 
The  supposed  fact,  they  will  say,  may  be  doubted. 
Perhaps  some  tyrant  will  actually  feel  happier  than 
some  struggling  and  aspiring  soul  far  higher  up  in 
the  heavens.  But,  leaving  that  doubt  aside,  there  is 
the  other  objection.  The  ideal  justice  has  come  to 
be  founded  on  a  bare  physical  fact,  namely,  on  the 
constitution  of  the  soul,  which  might,  for  all  we  can 
see,  have  been  different. 

Important  as  he  is  in  concrete  ethical  questions, 
Aristotle  does  nothing  of  importance  to  remove  this 
fundamental  difficulty,  since  his  position  as  to  this 
matter  is  too  near  to  Plato's.  Still  less  do  the  Epi- 
cureans, for  whom  in  fact  just  this  difficulty  does  not 
exist.  Plainly  they  declare  that  they  merely  state 
physical  facts.  Generosity,  fidelity  to  friends,  and 
other  idealistic  activities  they  indeed  regard  as  the 
part  of  the  wise  man,  but  the  end  of  all  is  very 
frankly  declared  to  be  his  selfish  advantage.  As 
Cicero  expresses  their  view :  l  "  Cum  solitudo  et 
vita  sine  amicis  insidiarum  et  metus  plena  sit,  ratio 
ipsa  monet  amicitias  comparare,  quibus  partis  con- 

1  De  Fin.,  I.  20,  66.  Quoted  in  Zeller's  Philos.  d.  Griechen,  Th. 
3,  Abth.  I.  (3ded.)  p.  460. 


38  THE   RELIGIOUS  ASPECT   OF   PHILOSOPHY. 

firmatur  animus  et  a  spe  pariendarum  voluptatum 
sejungi  non  potest." 

The  Stoics  have  a  new  thought  to  offer,  one  that 
would  have  been  as  revolutionary  as  Christianity  it- 
self, if  they  could  but  have  grasped  arid  taught  its 
full  meaning.  But  that  was  for  them  impossible. 
Their  new  thought,  which  gave  foundation  to  their 
moral  ideals,  was  the  thought  of  the  perfect  equality 
of  all  men  in  the  presence  of  the  universal  Reason, 
to  which  all  alike  ought  to  conform.  Everyone,  they 
said,  ought  to  be  rational ;  everyone  ought  to  try  to 
extend  the  empire  of  reason.  If  one's  neighbor  is 
a  rational  being,  one  can  and  must  try  to  realize  the 
rational  in  him  almost  as  much  as  in  one's  own  self. 
Hence  one's  duty  to  do  good  to  men.  This  duty,  to 
be  sure,  commonly  did  not  for  the  Stoics  extend  to 
the  point  of  very  great  practical  self -sacrifice.  But 
at  any  rate  they  gave  a  new  foundation  for  justice. 
One  works  not  only  to  conform  one's  self  to  the 
ideal,  but  also  to  realize  the  ideal  here  in  this  world 
in  others  as  well  as  in  himself.  The  ideal  Reason 
can  be  realized  in  yonder  man  through  my  efforts, 
much  as,  through  my  acts,  it  can  be  realized  in  me. 
All  men  are  in  so  far  brothers,  members  of  one  fam- 
ily, children  of  one  Father,  and  so  all  alike  objects 
of  moral  effort  for  every  one  of  their  number.1 

1  For  a  collection  of  the  passages  illustrative  of  this  doctrine, 
see  the  quotations  in  Zeller's  Philos.  d.  Griechen,  Th.  3,  Abth.  L 
p.  285,  sqq.  (3d  ed.).  Marcus  Aurelius  is  prominent  in  the  list. 
Epictetus  is  responsible  for  the  deduction  of  human  brotherhood 
from  the  common  fatherhood  of  God.  Seneca  has  frequent  expres- 
sions of  similar  thoughts.  Yet  for  all  that  the  wise  man  is  to  be 
independent  and  separate.  In  his  respect  for  humanity,  he  is  not 
to  lose  himself. 


THE   WARFARE   OF   THE   MORAL  IDEALS.  39 

II. 

This  thought  was  indeed  a  deep  one,  and  if  the 
Stoics  gave  but  an  imperfect  practical  realization  of 
it  to  the  world,  they  prepared  thereby  the  way  for 
the  reception  of  the  higher  thought  of  Jesus,  when 
that  thought  appeared.  We  may  therefore  more 
readily  suggest  the  skeptical  criticism  of  the  Stoical 
thought  by  first  looking  at  the  well  known  comple- 
tion of  the  notion  of  God's  fatherhood  in  the  doc- 
trine of  Jesus. 

Jesus  founded  his  morality  in  his  theology,  yet  he 
did  not  make  moral  distinctions  dependent  on  the 
mere  fact  of  divine  reward  or  vengeance.  An  act 
is  for  him  wrong,  not  because  outside  the  kingdom 
of  heaven  there  is  weeping  and  gnashing  of  teeth ; 
rather  should  we  say  that  because  the  act  is  opposed  V 
to  the  very  nature  of  the  relation  of  sonship  to  God,  ( 
as  Jesus  conceives  this  relation,  therefore  the  doers 
of  such  acts  cannot  be  in  the  kingdom  of  heaven,  all 
whose  citizens  are  sons  of  the  King.  And  outside 
the  kingdom  there  is  darkness  and  weeping,  simply 
because  outside  is  outside.  Therefore,  if  Jesus  gives 
us  a  theological  view  of  the  nature  of  morality,  he 
does  not  make  morality  dependent  on  the  bare  des- 
potic will  of  God,  but  on  a  peculiar  and  necessary*^ 
relation  between  God  and  his  creatures.  So  long  / 
as  God  is  what  he  is,  and  they  remain  his  crea- 
tures, so  long  must  this  relation  continue.  Jesus  in 
fact,  as  we  know,  gives  us  a  higher  and  universal 
form  of  the  morality  of  the  prophets.  They  had 
said,  Jahveh  has  saved  his  people,  has  chosen  them 


40  THE   RELIGIOUS   ASPECT    OF   PHILOSOPHY. 

from  all  the  earth,  has  fed  them  with  his  bounty, 
has  treated  them  as  his  well-beloved  vineyard,  has 
taken  the  nation  as  it  were  to  wife.  And  so,  if  the 
people  offend  against  the  law  of  righteousness  that 
is  written  in  their  hearts  and  known  through  the 
words  of  prophecy,  they  are  guilty  not  alone  of  dan- 
gerous revolt  against  irresistible  might,  but  also  of 
something  far  worse,  namely,  of  the  basest  ingrati- 
tude. Their  sin  is  unheard  of  in  all  the  earth.  The 
heathen  forsake  not  their  wretched  gods,  that  are 
yet  no  gods,  and  shall  Israel  turn  against  the  will 
of  its  living,  almighty  lover  ?  The  waste  vine- 
yard, the  unfaithful  wife,  these  are  the  types  of  the 
iniquity  of  the  people.  Their  sin  is  a  miserable 
state  of  utter  corruption.  What  the  very  beasts  do, 
to  know  the  masters  that  feed  them,  Israel  forgets, 
whose  master  is  not  only  the  maker  of  all  things, 
but  also  the  loving  spouse  of  his  chosen  nation. 

This  sanction  for  morality,  not  the  might  so  much 
as  the  tender  love  of  God,  is  by  Jesus  extended  in 
range  and  deepened  in  meaning.  Every  man  stands 
before  God  as  beloved  son.  If  he  wanders,  the 
Father  would  fain  seek  him  as  the  shepherd  would 
a  lost  sheep  ;  would  fain,  like  the  prodigal's  father, 
fall  upon  his  neck  and  kiss  him,  if  he  will  but  re- 
turn ;  would  fain  feed  and  clothe  him  with  the  best ; 
would  not  forget  him  amid  all  his  sins.  And  the 
Father's  rain  and  sunshine  are  for  just  and  un- 
just. Deeper  and  tenderer  is  this  thought  than  the 
prophetic  idea,  because  the  relation  is  no  political 
one,  but  a  close  personal  one.  To  be  conscious  of  it 
means,  according  to  Jesus,  to  wish  to  live  in  accord- 


THE   WARFARE   OF   THE   MORAL   IDEALS.  41 

ance  with  it,  so  as  to  return  to  the  Father  love  for 
love.  Hence,  in  knowing  this  relation,  one  has  the 
highest  sanction  for  all  good  acts.  The  ultimate 
motive  that  Jesus  gives  to  men  for  doing  right  is 
therefore  the  wish  to  be  in  harmony  with  God's 
love.  So  the  Father  in  his  holiness  wills  for  each  of 
us,  and  so  each  son,  conscious  of  the  love  of  the 
Father,  also  desires,  as  soon  as  he  is  aware  of  the 
Father's  will.  One  cannot  know  of  this  infinite  love  ) 
without  wishing  to  be  in  union  with  it.  Even  with-  / 
out  knowing  of  the  love,  the  very  consciousness  of 
the  wretchedness  of  the  lonely,  separate  life  of  selfish 
wickedness  must  lead  one  to  want  to  forsake  the 
husks  and  find  the  Father,  even  if  he  should  be  but 
the  angry  Father.  Much  more  then  if  one  has 
found  the  Father,  has  found  him  caring  for  the  spar- 
rows, and  for  the  lilies,  and  for  the  least  and  the 
worst  of  his  children,  must  orie,  thus  knowing  the 
Father,  desire  to  submit  to  him.  One  is  lost  in  the 
ocean  of  divine  love.  Separate  existence  there  is  no 
more.  One  is  anxious  to  lose  his  life,  to  hate  all 
selfish  joys,  to  sell  all  that  one  has,  to  be  despised 
and  rejected  of  all  the  world,  if  so  be  that  thereby 
one  can  come  into  accord  with  the  universal  life  of 
God's  love,  in  which  everything  of  lesser  worth  dis- 
appears. 

Duty  to  one's  neighbor  is  but  a  corollary  to  all 
this.  In  the  first  place  one's  neighbor  is  no  longer 
a  mere  fact  of  experience,  a  rival,  a  helper,  an 
enemy ;  but  he  is,  instead  of  all  this,  a  child  of  God. 
Every  other  aspect  of  his  life  is  lost  in  this  one.  As 
child  then  he  represents  the  Father.  The  highest 


42  THE   RELIGIOUS   ASPECT    OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

messenger  of  God  will  say  in  God's  name  at  the  last : 
Inasmuch  as  ye  did  it  unto  the  least  of  these  my 
brethren,  ye  did  it  unto  me.  And  so  each  brother 
is  the  ambassador  of  God.  When  Job  had  spoken 
of  his  duty  towards  the  lowly,  he  had  given  the  sanc- 
tion for  it  in  the  thought :  Did  not  one  fashion  us  ? 
Jesus  gives  a  higher  sanction  :  Does  not  one  Father 
love  you  all  ?  In  the  presence  of  the  Father  the 
children  are  to  lose  their  separateness.  They  are  to 
feel  the  oneness  of  their  life.  There  is  no  longer 
any  rival  or  enemy,  any  master  or  slave,  any  debtor 
or  creditor  here,  for  all  are  in  infinite  debt  to  the 
Infinite  One,  and  all  in  his  sight  brethren. 

The  Stoics  had  conceived  of  a  common  Father. 

But  they  regarded  him  as  an  impersonal,  all-pervad- 

f   ing  Reason.     The  thought  of  Jesus  gave  to  his  idea 

of  the  fatherhood  of  God  a  warmth  and  life  unknown 

to  any  previous  thought.     And  in  this  warmth  and 

life  he  intended  the  idea  of  Duty  to  grow.    The  high- 

]  est  principle  of  the  doctrine  is :  Act  as  one  receiv- 

•  ing  and   trying   to   return   an    Infinite   Love.     To 

thy  neighbor  act  as  it  befits  one  so  beloved  to  act 

towards   his    brother   in  love.      And  thus  is  Duty 

explained. 

For  our  present  skeptical  inquiries  this  doctrine  of 
Jesus  in  its  original  form  is  no  longer  enough.  For 
one  thing,  Jesus  himself  did  not  intend  it  as  a  philos- 
ophy, but  always  expresses  it  as  an  insight.  And  in 
our  time  this  insight  is  clouded  by  many  doubts  that 
cannot  be  lightly  brushed  away.  This  idea  of  God 
as  a  Father,  —  it  is  exactly  the  idea  that  our  philos- 
ophy finds  most  difficulty,  nowadays,  in  establishing. 


THE  WARFARE   OF   THE   MORAL  IDEALS.  43 

For  many  in  all  the  future  history  of  our  race  this 
idea  will  be  harder  to  establish  than  will  be  the 
moral  doctrine  that  was  deduced  by  Jesus  from  it. 
For  many*who  with  steadfast  faith  accept  the  doc- 
trine of  God's  fatherhood,  their  ultimate  reason  will 
rather  be  that,  first  accepting  the  morality  of  Jesus, 
they  find  it  most  natural  to  accept  therewith  what 
they  understand  to  be  his  theology.  His  moral  doc- 
trine will  be  to  them  the  insight,  the  theology  will 
be  taken  on  trust.  Many  others  will  accept  indeed 
the  morality,  but  be  unable  to  accept  the  theology. 
In  ethical  faith  they  will  be  Christians,  in  theology 
Agnostics.  And  therefore,  to  the  philosophic  stu- 
dent, who  must  prove  all  things,  and  hold  fast  only 
what  he  finds  sure,  it  is  impossible  to  take  the  the- 
ology of  Jesus  on  simple  faith,  and  not  profitable  to 
postpone  the  discussion  of  the  moral  problems  until 
he  first  shall  have  established  a  theology.  Morality 
is  for  us  the  starting-point  of  our  inquiry.  Theol- 
ogy comes  later,  if  at  all.  And,  as  we  shall  presently 
see,  the  theology,  if  accepted,  would  not  satisfy  all 
the  questions  of  the  ethical  inquirer. 

Yet  if  the  doctrine  of  Jesus  does  not  belong 
among  the  purely  idealistic  theories  of  duty,  since  it 
gives  duty  the  fact  of  God's  fatherhood  as  its  foun- 
dation, it  has  one  aspect  that  would  make  the  recapit- 
ulation of  it  necessary  even  in  the  course  of  a  study 
of  purely  ideal  ethics.  For,  while  this  doctrine 
founds  duty  ultimately  on  the  consciousness  that 
God  is  a  Father,  and  so  on  a  belief  in  a  physical  or 
metaphysical  truth,  still  the  immediate  ground  of 
the  idea  of  duty  to  one's  neighbor  is  the  conscious- 


44  THE   RELIGIOUS   ASPECT   OF   PHILOSOPHY. 

ness  in  each  man  that  his  neighbor  is  his  brother. 
In  the  teachings  of  Jesus  this  latter  insight  follows 
from  the  sense  of  common  sonship  that  Jesus  wants 
to  give  to  men.  But,  apart  from  the  theology,  the  be- 
lief in  the  brotherhood  of  men,  in  case  it  can  be  made 
clear  and  definite,  may  have  just  the  relation  to  the 
idea  of  duty  that  Jesus,  in  his  theological  ethics, 
wished  the  idea  of  the  common  sonship  to  have. 

But  it  is  our  present  purpose  to  see  how  doubt 
follows  the  track  of  the  moral  idealists.  And  to 
carry  out  even  here  this  purpose,  it  is  very  important 
to  note  that  however  much  the  morality  of  Jesus 
seems  to  rest  upon  his  theology,  and  did,  for  him,  rest 
upon  that  theology,  for  us  that  basis  would  be  of  it- 
self insufficient,  even  if  we  could  unhesitatingly  ac- 
cept the  theology.  For  the  skeptical  question  might 
arise  in  the  inquiries  of  the  philosopher,  to  whom  all 
questions  are  allowed,  Why  is  it  evident  that  one 
ought  to  return  the  Father's  love  ?  Granting  the 
fact  of  this  love,  how  does  it  establish  the  ideal  ? 
And  this  question,  easy  as  seems  the  answer  of  it 
to  a  believer,  is  just  the  question  that  the  "  almost 
persuaded  "  of  all  times  have  been  disposed  to  ask. 
Any  particular  individual  may  believe  in  the  theol- 
ogy of  Jesus,  and  yet  fail  to  feel  the  force  of  the 
moral  doctrine.  Why  does  this  love  constrain  me  ? 
he  may  say.  In  fact  the  church  has  always  found 
it  necessary  to  construct  for  itself  a  process,  or  even 
a  series  of  processes,  through  which  the  unbeliever 
must  go,  in  order  to  reach  the  point  of  development 
where  he  could  begin  to  feel  the  constraining  force 
of  the  divine  love.  It  has  been  recognized  as  a  fact 


THE  WARFARE   OF   THE   MORAL  IDEALS.  45 

that  the  unregenerate  could  believe  and  even  trem- 
ble and  yet  remain  unregenerate.  The  saving  faith 
was  seen  to  be  not  identical  with  the  mere  belief  in 
God  as  Father.  For  the  saving  faith,  divine  grace 
was  necessary,  adding  to  the  unregenerate  recogni- 
tion of  the  bare  truth  the  devotion  of  the  loving 
child  of  God.  And  therefore  the  church  has  never 
been  content  with  the  doctrine  of  Jesus  in  its  unde- 
veloped simplicity. 

But  if  all  this  is  so,  then  for  us  the  morality  of 
Jesus,  considered  as  morality,  is  founded,  not  on  the 
theological  theory  alone,  but  also  on  a  peculiar  insight 
that  each  man  is  to  have  into  the  duty  of  returning 
the  divine  love.  That  the  divine  love  is  real,  gives  a 
basis  for  all  duty  in  case  and  only  in  case  one  first 
sees  that  it  is  one's  duty  to  return  the  divine  love. 
And  wherein  is  this  insight  as  such  any  clearer  than 
the  direct  insight  into  the  duty  of  loving  one's  neigh- 
bor ?  If  a  man  loves  not  his  brother  whom  he  has 
seen,  how  shall  he  love  God  whom  he  has  not  seen  ? 
Is  not  the  duty  of  gratitude  first  evident,  if  at  all,  in 
man's  relations  to  his  fellows  ?  Is  not  love  given  first 
as  a  duty  to  one's  companions,  and  only  secondarily 
as  a  duty  to  God,  and  then  only  in  case  one  believes 
in  God  ?  In  other  words,  are  we  not  here,  as  in  the 
discussion  with  the  realist  at  the  outset,  led  to  the 
view  that  not  a  physical  doctrine,  nor  yet  even  the 
sublimest  metaphysical  doctrine,  as  such,  but  only  an 
ethical  doctrine,  can  be  at  the  base  of  a  system  of 
ethics  ?  The  doctrine  that  God  loves  us  is  a  foun- 
dation for  duty  only  by  virtue  of  the  recognition  of 
one  yet  more  fundamental  moral  principle,  the  doc- 


46  THE   RELIGIOUS  ASPECT   OF   PHILOSOPHY. 

»  trine  that  unearned  love  ought  to  be  gratefully  re- 
'*  turned.  And  for  this  principle  theology  as  such 
gives  no  foundation.  But  on  the  other  hand,  upon 
what  should  the  ideal  principle  itself  be  founded? 
Why  is  unearned  love  to  be  gratefully  returned  ?  Is 
this  principle  founded  once  more  on  some  doctrine 
of  the  constitution  of  human  nature  ?  The  same  ob- 
jection would  again  appear.  A  physical  fact  is  no 
ideal.  So,  then,  this  insight  is  just  an  insight,  the 
acceptance  of  an  ideal  wholly  for  its  own  sake  ?  But 
then  returns  the  old  objection.  What  is  such  an 
unfounded  ideal  but  the  individual  caprice  of  some- 
body ?  Let  the  faithful  be  never  so  devoted ;  still 
there  are  the  unregenerate,  who  are  somehow  to  be 
convinced  of  a  truth  that  they  do  not  recognize.  And 
how  are  they  convinced,  if  at  all  ?  Not  by  showing 
them  the  facts,  which  they  have  already  known  with- 
out conviction  ;  but  by  arousing  in  them  a  new  feel- 
ing, namely,  gratitude.  Thus  the  Christian  ideal 
seems  to  have  for  its  sole  theoretical  foundation  the 
physical  fact  that  man  often  feels  gratitude.  It  is  true 
that  no  one  can  accuse  Jesus  of  expressly  giving  this 
•  or  any  other  theoretical  foundation  to  his  doctrine. 
He  was  necessarily  wholly  free  from  the  theoretical 
aim  in  his  dealings  with  the  people.  But  for  us  now 
the  point  is  the  theoretical  point.  If  the  foundation 
c.  of  Christian  ethics  as  popularly  understood  be  not 
i  the  physical  fact  of  the  Father's  love,  then  is  it  not 
i  just  the  physical  fact  of  the  frequent  existence  of 
u  gratitude  ?  And  is  either  of  these  a  satisfactory  foun- 
dation for  an  ethical  theory  as  such  ?  Nay,  if  Chris- 
tian ethics  be  the  highest  from  the  practical  point  of 


THE  WARFARE   OF   THE  MORAL  IDEALS.  47 

view,  still  must  we  not  dig  much  deeper  to  find  the 
theoretical  foundation  on  which  this  glorious  struc- 
ture rests  ? 

III. 

We  have  been  seeking  to  illustrate  our  funda- 
mental difficulty  in  ethics,  —  one  that  is  too  fre- 
quently concealed  by  rhetorical  devices.  The  un- 
certainty here  illustrated  results  from  the  difficulty 
of  giving  any  reason  for  the  choice  of  a  moral  ideal. 
Single  acts  are  judged  by  the  ideal ;  but  who  shall 
judge  the  judge  himself?  Some  one,  as  Plato,  or 
some  Stoic,  or  Jesus,  gives  us  a  moral  ideal.  If  we 
are  of  his  followers,  the  personal  influence  of  the 
Master  is  enough.  Then  we  say :  "  I  take  this  to*  be 
my  guide,"  and  our  moral  doctrine  is  founded.  But 
if  we  are  not  of  the  faithful,  then  we  ask  for  proof. 
The  doctrine  says :  "  Behold  the  perfect  Life,  or  the 
eternal  Ideas,  or  the  course  of  Nature,  or  the  will  of 
God,  or  the  love  of  the  Father.  To  look  on  those 
realities  is  to  understand  our  ideal.  If  you  remem- 
ber those  truths,  you  will  hesitate  not  to  do  as  we 
say."  But  still  the  doubter  may  be  unwilling  to 
submit.  He  may  say  to  Plato  :  "  The  tyrant  is  easy 
to  find  who  wiJl  laugh  at  you  when  you  talk  of  the 
peace  of  philosophic  contemplation,  who  will  insist 
that  his  life  of  conflict  and  of  danger  is  fuller  and 
sweeter  in  its  lurid  contrasts  and  in  its  ecstasies  of 
sensuous  bliss,  than  are  all  your  pale,  stupid  joys  of 
blank  contemplation.  And  if  the  tyrant  says  so, 
who  shall  decide  against  him?  Has  not  many  a 
man  turned  with  eagerness  from  the  dull  life  of  the 


48  THE   RELIGIOUS  ASPECT   OF   PHILOSOPHY. 

thinker,  once  for  a  while  endured,  to  the  richer  joys 
and  sorrows  of  the  man  of  the  world?  Have  not 
such  men  actually  held  the  pleasures  of  life,  however 
dearly  bought,  to  be  better  than  the  superhuman 
calm  of  your  philosophic  ideal  ?  "  Even  so  to  the 
Stoic,  the  objector  may  say :  "  Granted  that  your 
eternal  Reason  does  pervade  all  things  and  is  our 
common  Father,  why  should  that  cause  me,  who  am 
one  of  his  creatures,  to  do  otherwise  than  I  like? 
Who  can  escape  from  his  presence  ?  Even  if  I  live 
irrationally,  am  I  not  still  part  of  the  Universal 
Reason  ?  The  bare  fact  that  there  is  an  Eternal 
Wisdom  does  not  make  clear  to  me  that  I  must 
needs  be  very  wise.  My  destiny  may  be  the  destiny 
of 'a  being  made  solely  to  enjoy  himself."  •  And,  to 
the  Christian  doctrine,  the  skeptic  may  oppose  the 
objection  that  if  the  truth  does  not  at  once  spiritu- 
ally convert  all  who  know  it,  the  proof  is  still  lacking 
that  the  Christian  Ideal  actually  appeals  to  all  pos- 
sible natures.  "  If  I  feel  not  the  love  of  God,"  the 
objector  will  say,  "  how  prove  to  me  that  I  ought  to 
feel  it  ?  "  Or,  as  human  nature  so  often  questions : 
"  Why  must  I  be  loving  and  unselfish  ?  " 

Now,  the  simple,  practical  way  of  dealing  with  all 
such  objectors  is  to  anathematize  them  at  once.  Of 
course,  from  the  point  of  view  of  any  assumed  ideal, 
the  anathema  may  be  well  founded.  "  If  you  do  not 
as  I  command,"  so  says  any  moral  ideal,  "I  con- 
demn you  as  an  evil-doer."  "  He  that  belie veth  not 
shall  be  damned."  But  anathemas  are  not  argu- 
ments. To  resort  to  them  is  to  give  up  theoretic 
ethics.  We  who  are  considering,  not  whom  we  shall 


THE  WARFARE   OF   THE  MORAL  IDEALS.  49 

practically  condemn,  but  what  we  can  say  in  favor 
of  any  moral  theory,  must  be  unwilling  to  be  put  off 
with  mere  oratorical  persuasion,  or  to  mistake  prac- 
tical adhesion  for  theoretical  conviction.  We  want 
a  code  that  shall  seem  not  only  admirable,  but,  if  so 
it  may  be,  demonstrable. 

Such  objections,  then,  blocking  the  path  of  our 
idealist,  what  is  he  to  do  with  them  ?  Is  there  any 
direction  in  which  he  can  successfully  seek  a  foun- 
dation for  his  ideals  ? 

We  have,  indeed,  much  seeking  yet  to  do  ere  we 
can  find  the  right  direction.     For,  in  the  next  place, 
we  shall  have  to  show  how  just  such  objections  as 
we  have  applied  to  other  ethical  doctrines  will  apply 
to  all  those  doctrines  that  put  the  basis  of  morals  in 
the  often-used  mass  of  instincts  called  Conscience. 
Conscience  undoubtedly  expresses  the  results  of  civ-    • 
ilized  ancestry  and  training.     It  no  doubt  must  al-    • 
ways  prove  an  indispensable  aid  in  making  practical 
moral  decisions  ;  but  if  it  be  used  to  give  a  theo- 
retical basis  to  ethics,  one  can  say  of  it  what  has 
been  already  said  of   other  realities.     Its  universal 
and  uniform  presence  among  men  can  be  doubted, 
and  its  value  where  it  is  present  can  be  called  in 
question  whenever  it  is  employed  to  give  a  basis  for 
ethics ;  since  as  a  mere  physical  fact  of  the  constitu- '. 
tion  of  human  nature,  conscience  is  not  yet  an  ideal,  • 
nor  an  obvious  foundation  for  an  ideal.     Both  of 
these  objections  have  been  frequently  urged.     Let 
us  venture  to  repeat  the  old  story. 
4 


50  THE   RELIGIOUS   ASPECT   OF   PHILOSOPHY. 

IV. 

Instincts  in  general  are  useful,  not  because  they 
are  infallible,  much  less  because  they  are  rational 
(for  they  are  neither),  but  because  they  work  quickly 
and  are  less  capricious  than  are  our  less  habitual 
impulses,  and  so,  in  common  life,  are  our  substitutes 
for  reason.  But,  in  theory,  no  act  is  good  merely 
because  the  instinct  called  conscience  approves  of 
it ;  nor  does  conscience  in  any  man  always  instinc- 
tively approve  of  good  acts.  Therefore  conscience 
is,  for  the  purpose  of  founding  an  ethical  theory,  as 
useless  as  if  it  were  a  mere  fiction.  It  gives  no 
foundation  for  moral  distinctions. 

To  be  sure,  we  must  be  understood  as  referring 
here  not  to  the  moral  consciousness  of  man  in  its 
highest  rational  manifestations  ;  for  that  there  is  a 
rational  and  well-founded  moral  consciousness  we 
ourselves  desire  to  show.  The  conscience  that  we 
criticise  is  conscience  as  an  instinct.  When  people 
say  that  so  and  so  is  the  right  because  the  immediate 
declaration  of  conscience  shows  it  to  be  the  right, 
they  generally  mean  that  so  and  so  is  right  because 
it  feels  right.  And  when  moralists  found  their  eth- 
ical doctrine  on  conscience,  they  are  in  great  danger 
of  making  their  whole  appeal  to  mere  feeling.  But 
such  mere  feeling  can  only  give  us  problems ;  it  can- 
not solve  problems.  To  illustrate  by  a  notable  case : 
When  Butler,  in  analyzing  the  data  of  conscience, 
in  his  "  Dissertation  of  the  Nature  of  Virtue,"  comes 
upon  the  fact  that  benevolence,  or  the  effort  to  in- 
crease the  general  happiness,  is,  for  our  common  pof 


THE   WARFARE   OF   THE   MORAL   IDEALS.  51 

ular  conscience,  only  a  part  of  virtue,  not  in  any  sort 
the  whole  of  it,  he  really  discovers  nothing  positive 
about  the  nature  of  virtue,  but  only  gives  us  a  very 
interesting  problem  about  the  nature  of  virtue.  If 
benevolence  were  the  sole  basis  of  virtue,  then,  says 
Butler,  for  our  conscience  treachery  and  violence 
would  be  "no  otherwise  vicious  than  as  foreseen 
likely  to  produce  an  overbalance  of  misery  to  society." 
Therefore,  he  continues,  "if  in  any  case  a  man  could 
procure  to  himself  as  great  advantage  by  an  act  of 
injustice  as  the  whole  foreseen  inconvenience  likely  to 
be  brought  upon  others  by  it  would  amount  to,  such 
a  piece  of  injustice  would  not  be  faulty  or  vicious  at 
all."  Even  so,  it  would  not  be  wrong,  he  points 
out,  to  take  A's  property  away  and  give  it  to  B,  if 
B's  happiness  in  getting  it  overbalanced  A's  incon- 
venience and  vexation  in  losing  it.  But  since  con- 
science disapproves  of  such  actions,  therefore,  con- 
tinues Butler,  "  the  fact  appears  to  be  that  we  are 
constituted  so  as  to  condemn  falsehood,  unprovoked 
violence,  injustice,  and  to  approve  of  benevolence  to 
some  preferably  to  others,  abstracted  from  all  con- 
sideration, which  conduct  is  likely  to  produce  an 
overbalance  of  happiness  or  misery."  Were  God's 
"moral  character  merely  that  of  benevolence,  yet 
ours  is  not  so."  All  this  now  shows  how  full  of 
problems  our  uncriticised  conscience  is.  It  is  the 
starting-point,  not  the  guide,  of  moral  controversies. 
Conscience  approves  benevolence,  and  it  also  ap- 
proves the  repression  of  benevolence  in  cases  where 
justice,  distributive  or  retributive,  seems  to  the  pop- 
ular mind  to  be  opposed  to  benevolence.  And  when 


52  THE   RELIGIOUS   ASPECT    OF   PHILOSOPHY. 

some  moralist  tries  to  reduce  justice  in  all  its  forms 
to  benevolence,  the  natural  conscience  is  dissatisfied. 
Retribution  it  approves,  not  because  retribution  may 
ultimately  increase  happiness,  but  because  retribu- 
tion seems  good  to  it.  And  if  the  natural  conscience 
is  again  appealed  to,  and  is  at  last  brought  to  admit 
that  benevolence  is,  after  all,  really  the  highest  end, 
and  punishment  only  a  means,  then  this  appeal  is 
simply  a  setting  of  conscience  against  itself.  The 
popular  conscience  is,  as  an  instinct,  once  for  all 
confused  and  uncertain  about  the  true  relations  of 
justice  and  benevolence.  It  is  useless  to  ask  this 
instinct  to  do  what  the  natural  conditions  that  made 
it  never  prepared  it  to  do,  namely,  to  make  a  system 
of  morals.  A  thinker  like  Butler,  with  his  serious- 
ness and  depth  of  insight,  defends  the  claims  of  con- 
science only  by  analyses  which  bring  home  to  us 
that  our  conscience  is  a  mystery,  and  that  its  asser- 
tions about  all  the  deepest  ethical  questions  become 
uncertain  or  confused  as  soon  as  we  cross-question  it. 
An  instinct  is,  in  short,  like  any  other  habit.  You 
run  fast  down  a  familiar  flight  of  stairs  so  long  as 
you  do  not  think  what  your  feet  are  doing.  Reflect 
upon  your  running,  and  ten  chances  to  one  you  shall 
stumble.  Even  so  conscience  is  a  perfectly  confident 
guide  as  long  as  you  ask  it  no  philosophical  questions. 
The  objections  here  in  question  have  been  so 
frequently  urged  that  it  is  hardly  worth  while  for 
those  who  can  feel  their  force  to  dwell  on  them  very 
long.  It  is  enough  for  the  present  purpose  to  add 
what  all  the  moral  skeptics  from  the  time  of  the 
Sophists  have  insisted  upon,  namely,  that  the  con- 


THE   WARFARE   OF   THE   MORAL   IDEALS.  53 

sciences  of  various  men,  nations  and  races,  are  con- 
flicting in  their  judgments  of  acts.  This  objection, 
worthless  when  urged  against  a  well-founded  theory 
of  the  moral  consciousness,  is  fatal  to  any  theory  that 
makes  morality  dependent  upon  a  particular  emo- 
tional or  intellectual  "  constitution  "  of  human  nature, 
that  declares  morality  to  be  known  by  men  through 
one  faculty  or  "  sense  "  of  a  peculiar  character.  If 
there  are  many  consciences,  each  claiming  rank  as 
the  true  conscience,  and  all  conflicting,  then  the 
choice  among  these  can  only  be  made  on  the  ground 
of  something  else  than  a  conscience. 

The  caprices  of  moral  instinct  are  not  exhausted 
when  one  has  enumerated,  as  nowadays  men  often 
do,  as  many  practices  as  one  can  find  approved 
or  demanded  by  the  consciences  of  filthy  savages. 
Among  civilized  men,  yes,  in  our  own  hearts,  each 
of  us  can  find  numberless  conflicting  and  capricious 
estimates  of  actions,  and  it  has  only  a  psychological 
interest  to  study  them  in  detail,  or  to  try  to  reduce 
them  to  any  semblance  of  principle.  Such  con- 
science as  we  have  about  common  matters  is  too  eas- 
ily quieted ;  and,  as  a  mere  feeling,  the  conscience 
that  can  be  called  moral  is  not  readily  distinguish- 
able  in  this,  or  in  any  other  respect,  from  a  mere 
sense  of  propriety,  from  a  reverence  for  custom,  or « 
from  the  fear  of  committing  an  offense  against  eti- 
quette. That  certain  blunders  hurt  us  more  than 
our  lesser  crimes,  and  that  our  remorse  for  them  i 
like  our  remorse  for  venial  immorality,  only  more 
intense,  is  nowadays  a  matter  of  frequent  remark. 
You  ride  using  another  man's  season-ticket,  or  you 


54  THE   RELIGIOUS   ASPECT    OF   PHILOSOPHY. 

tell  a  white  lie,  or  speak  an  unkind  word,  and  con- 
science, if  a  little  used  to  such  things,  never  winces. 
But  you  bow  to  the  wrong  man  in  the  street,  or  you 
mispronounce  a  word,  or  you  tip  over  a  glass  of  wa- 
ter, and  then  you  agonize  about  your  shortcoming 
all  day  long,  yes,  from  time  to  time  for  weeks. 
Such  an  impartial  and  independent  judge  is  the 
feeling  of  what  you  ought  to  have  done.  Shall 
ethics  be  founded  on  feeling,  which  to-day  is  and  to- 
morrow is  cast  into  the  oven  ? 

The  traditional  answer  of  the  advocates  of  con- 
science, when  these  facts  are  urged  against  them,  is 
well  known.  They  say,  various  less  dignified  mental 
tendencies  may  at  times  be  mistaken  for  conscience ; 
but  the  moral  sense  is  real  and  trustworthy  notwith- 
standing all  these  mistakes.  Shame,  or  love  of 
praise,  or  sense  of  propriety  may  pass  themselves  off 
as  conscience;  but  the  genuine  conscience,  when 
you  find  it,  is  infallible.  But  we  may  still  rejoin 
that,  if  the  difficulty  is  of  this  nature,  the  consequence 
must  be  very  much  the  same  as  what  we  are  insist- 
ing upon.  For  if  the  question  can  arise  whether  a 
given  impulse  in  me,  which  I  take  to  be  conscience, 
really  is  the  voice  of  the  infallible  conscience  or  not, 
then  this  question  cannot  be  decided  by  appeal  to 
conscience  itself ;  since  the  very  problem  then  is  : 
"  Of  two  impulses,  both  pretending  to  represent  con- 
science, which  is  the  genuine  conscience?"  And 
questions  of  this  sort  must  be  appealed  to  some 
higher  tribunal  than  the  conflicting  impulses  them- 
selves. It  will  not  be  enough  to  apply  even  Antig- 
one's sublime  test  to  the  warring  impulses,  and  to 


THE   WARFARE   OF    THE   MORAL   IDEALS.  55 

say  :  This  impulse  is  not  of  to-day  nor  of  yesterday, 
and  no  man  can  tell  whence  it  came,  therefore  it  is 
the  voice  of  infallible  conscience.  For,  fine  as  that 
saying  is,  when  applied  to  a  genuine  eternal  truth, 
the  test  is  not  a  sufficient  one  for  us  in  our  weakness 
to  apply  to  the  impulses  that  we  find  in  our  poor 
selves.  For  we  soon  forget  whence  came  our  preju- 
dices and  even  our  bad  habits,  and  we  can  fancy  that 
to  be  of  immemorial  antiquity  which  has  begun  to 
be  in  our  own  parish,  and  within  the  memory  of  the 
old  men.  A  child  born  in  one  of  our  far  western 
settlements  grows  up  amid  a  community  that  is  a 
few  years  older  than  himself,  and  not  as  old  as  his 
eldest  brother.  Yet  he  shall  look  upon  all  these 
rickety,  wooden  houses,  and  half -graded  streets,  full 
of  rubbish,  as  the  outcome  of  an  immense  past;  he 
shall  hear  of  the  settlement  of  the  town  as  he  hears 
of  ancient  history,  and  he  shall  reverence  the  oldest 
deserted,  weather-beaten,  rotting  log-cabin  of  the 
place,  with  its  mud  chimney  crumbling  to  dust,  quite 
as  much  as  a  modern  Athenian  child  may  reverence 
the  ruins  of  the  Parthenon.  A  time  when  all  these 
things  were  not,  shall  be  beyond  his  conception. 
Even  so,  if  moral  truth  be  eternal,  we  yet  dare  not 
undertake  to  judge  what  it  is  by  merely  examining 
ourselves  to  see  what  customs  or  tastes  or  moral 
judgments  feel  to  our  present  selves  as  if  they  must 
have  been  eternal.  Such  absolute  validity  one  might 
possibly  feel  as  belonging  to  his  mother's  way  of  mak- 
ing plum-pudding.  Snow,  to  use  a  comparison  of 
Aristotle's,  is  as  white  after  one  day  as  if  it  had 
been  lying  untouched  and  unmelted  for  a  thousand 


56  THE   RELIGIOUS   ASPECT    OF   PHILOSOPHY. 

years.  And  high  judicial  authority  lately  expressed 
the  opinion,  a  propos  of  a  change  in  standard  time, 
that  usage  may  alter  itself  in  a  day  as  well  as  in  a 
century,  and  be  as  authoritative  in  one  case  as  in  the 
other.  Nothing  feels  older  than  a  well-established 
custom,  however  recent  it  may  be. 

Conscience  then  cannot  be  recognized  as  infallible 
merely  through  the  test  of  antiquity  as  judged  by 
our  feeling.  Conscience  furthermore,  or  emotions 
that  pretend  to  the  authority  of  *  conscience,  may  be 
found  counseling  or  approving  contradictory  ways 
of  action.  Therefore  conscience  is  no  sufficient 
moral  guide. 

But  even  if  all  this  were  waived,  if  conscience 
were  in  actual  agreement  among  all  men,  and  if 
there  were  no  difficulty  in  distinguishing  the  voice 
of  conscience  from  the  voice  of  passion,  or  from 
other  prejudices  or  sentiments,  it  would  remain  true 
that  no  ultimate  theory  of  the  difference  between 
right  and  wrong  could  be  founded  on  the  assertions 
of  any  instinct.  Why  an  individual  should  obey  his 
conscience  unless  he  wishes  to  do  so,  cannot  be  made 
clear  by  conscience  itself  alone.  Nor  can  the  neces- 
sity and  real  truth  of  a  distinction  be  made  clear  by 
the  assertions  of  a  faculty  that,  however  dignified  it 
may  be,  appears  in  the  individual  as  a  personal  emo- 
tion, a  prejudice  or  choice,  determined  by  an  im- 
pulse in  him.  Even  if  other  people  actually  have 
this  same  impulse,  that  does  not  make  their  common 
prejudice  necessary  or  rational.  Conscience,  if  uni- 
versal, would  still  be  only  a  physical  fact.  If  there 
are  actually  no  differences  among  various  consciences, 


THE   WARFARE   OF   THE  MORAL  IDEALS.  57 

it  is  still  impossible  to  see  why  there  might  not  be. 
And  the  possibility  is  as  fatal  to  the  authority  of  bare 
conscience  as  the  reality  would  be.     In  conscience 
alone,  without  some  higher  rational  test,  there  is  no 
ground   evident  wherefore  its  decisions   might   not 
have  been  other  than  they  are.     But  what  the  mor- 
alist wants  is  such  a  distinction  between  right  and 
wrong  as  does  not  depend  upon  any  mere  accident  of 
reality,  even  upon  the  accidental  existence  of  a  moral 
sense.     He  wants  to  find  the  eternal  ethical  truth. 
We  insist  then  that  one  of  the  first  questions  of  the 
moralist  must  be,  why  conscience  in  any  given  case      ^ 
is  right.     Or,  to  put  the  case  otherwise,  ethical  doc-    / 
trine  must  tell  us  why,  if  the  devil's  conscience  ap-    ( 
proves  of  the  devil's  acts,  as  it  well  may  do,  the    ^ 
devil's  conscience  is  nevertheless  in  the  wrong. 

The  discussion  has,  we  imagine,  after  all,  a  practi- 
cal importance  in  a  way  not  always  sufficiently  re- 
membered. In  the  name  of  conscience  many  crimes 
have  been  done.  In  the  name  of  conscience  men 
condemn  whatever  tends  towards  true  moral  prog- 
ress, so  long  as  this  new  element  is  opposed  to  popu- 
lar prejudice.  In  the  name  of  conscience  they  kill 
the  prophets,  and  stone  every  one  that  is  sent  unto 
them.  In  the  name  of  conscience  wars  are  waged, 
whole  tribes  are  destroyed,  whole  peoples  are  op- 
pressed. If  conscience  is  the  great  practical  guide 
in  common  life,  conscience  is  also,  in  many  great 
crises,  the  enemy  of  the  new  light.  It  is  the  sensi- 
tive and  penetrating  eye  of  the  heart,  but  it  is  often 
blind  before  the  coming  day,  even  because  it  has 
been  so  useful  to  us  in  finding  our  way  in  the  night. 


58  THE   RELIGIOUS   ASPECT    OF   PHILOSOPHY. 

It  ought  to  be  a  commonplace  of  morals  that  there 
are  certain  times  when  the  moral  reason  must  cast 
aside  the  moral  instinct,  when  the  lover  of  the  right 
must  silence  the  voice  of  conscience.  The  more  dan- 
gerous such  moments  are,  the  more  dreadful  the  mis- 
takes that  people  at  such  times  are  apt  to  make,  the 
more  necessary  it  is  that  the  moralist  should  dis- 
cover some  criterion  whereby  to  decide  when  instinct 
fails.  And  this  criterion  cannot  be  conscience  it- 
self. We  must  seek  yet  deeper. 


V. 

Our  criticism  of  conscience  is  only  another  exam- 
ple of  the  method  before  applied  to  the  criticism  of 
the  moral  ideals.  You  make  a  distinction  between 
right  and  wrong,  you  give  to  this  distinction  the  dig- 
nity of  a  principle,  you  deduce  special  moral  judg- 
ments therefrom.  But  then  some  one  asks  you  for 
any  foundation  for  the  principle,  beyond  your  own 
caprice.  You  thereupon  seek  to  produce  an  ultimate 
reason  for  your  faith.  And  your  ultimate  reason 
—  what  is  it  but  some  fact  external  to  your  choice 
and  to  your  ideal  judgments  ?  But  such  dead  exter- 
nal facts  were  just  what  you  wanted  to  avoid.  You 
had  said  that  an  ideal  must  have  only  an  ideal  foun- 
dation. And  now  you  say  that  the  ideally  right 
thing  depends  on  God's  nature,  on  the  existence  of 
the  universal  Reason,  or  on  the  assertions  of  Con- 
science. Say  thus  what  you  will,  have  you  done 
what  you  intended?  Have  you  made  evident  the 
necessity  of  your  ideal  ?  If,  per  impossibile,  you 


THE   WARFARE   OF   THE   MORAL   IDEALS.  59 

suppose  your  present  physical  beliefs  falsified,  if  the 
All-Father  changed  his  mind,  and  came  to  hate  his 
children,  or  if,  per  impossibile,  the  Devil  triumphed, 
or  the  eternal  Ideas  melted  away  like  snow,  or  the 
universal  Reason  became  insane,  or  the  Consciences 
of  all  men  grew  corrupt,  would  that  alter  the  ideal 
for  you  ?  If  the  moral  ideal  assumes  its  desired 
position  as  judge  of  all  things,  then  what  matters 
it  to  the  ideal  if  evil  is  triumphant  in  the  world? 
"  Fiend,  I  defy  thee  with  a  calm,  fixed  mind,"  the 
idealist  will  say,  after  the  manner  of  Shelley's  Pro- 
metheus, and  that  however  much  the  real  world 
may  threaten  him.  Therefore  how  can  the  Is  pre- 
determine the  Ought  to  be  ?  But  if  the  Ought  to 
be  be  independent  of  the  /$,  how  does  discussion 
about  the  power  of  God,  or  his  goodness,  about  the 
universality  of  conscience,  or  its  inner  strength  as  a 
feeling,  affect  our  judgment  of  the  ideal  distinction 
between  right  and  wrong  ? 

Thus  we  are  thrown  back  and  forth  between  the 
conflicting  demands  of  criticism.  "  Give  us  a  moral 
system  that  is  no  caprice  of  thine,"  say  the  critics 
of  one  sort.  That  seems  reasonable.  Therefore  we 
affirm,  "  This  system  of  ours  is  founded  on  a  rock  of 
eternal  truth,"  namely,  on  God's  will,  or  on  the  intui- 
tion of  universal  conscience,  or  on  some  like  fact  of 
the  world.  But  thereupon  other  critics  say  to  us : 
"  Wherein  do  you  differ  from  those  who  say  that 
might  is  right,  or  that  success  determines  the  right, 
or  that  whatever  exists  ought  to  exist  ?  For  after 
all  you  say,  something  that  is,  ought  to  be,  merely 
because  it  is."  And  always  still  other  critics  are 


60  THE   RELIGIOUS   ASPECT    OF   PHILOSOPHY. 

present,  to  doubt  whether  we  are  right  about  God 
or  conscience  as  physical  facts.  Such  critics  very 
plausibly  say,  "  Why  found  moral  truth,  which  ought 
to  be  so  secure  and  clear,  on  physical  or  metaphys- 
ical doctrines  that  are  so  often  doubted  and  so  hard 
to  establish  ?  " 

Such  is  the  general  difficulty  illustrated  in  the 
warfare  of  the  moral  ideals.  They  want  some  high- 
est judge  to  decide  among  them.  If  they  seek  this 
judge  in  the  real  world,  they  seem  to  endanger  their 
idealism.  If  they  seek  their  judge  among  them- 
selves, the  warfare  begins  afresh.  For  what  one  of 
them  can  be  the  sole  judge,  when  they  are  all  judges 
one  of  another? 


CHAPTER  IV. 

ALTRUISM    AND    EGOISM    IN     CERTAIN     RECENT   DIS- 
CUSSIONS. 

But  if  the  light  that  is  in  thee  be  darkness,  how  great  is  that  dark- 
ness! 

NOT  even  yet  have  we  exhausted  the  perplexities 
involved  in  this  fundamental  difficulty  of  moral 
theory.  Some  one  may  say :  "  Let  the  ideals  in 
general  take  care  of  themselves.  We  are  concerned 
in  this  world  with  individual  and  concrete  duties. 
These  at  least  are  plain."  But  these  also  involve 
questions  concerning  the  ideal.  Let  us  see  then  how 
the  same  difficulty  that  has  beset  the  more  general 
moral  doctrines,  returns  to  plague  us  in  case  of  the 
theoretical  treatment  of  one  of  these  plain  duties. 
Our  discussion  will  here  gain  in  definiteness  what  it 
loses  in  generality.  Let  us  choose  a  concrete  moral 
question,  namely,  the  problem  of  the  true  ground  of 
the  moral  distinctions  and  other  moral  relations  be- 
tween what  people  nowadays  like  to  call  altruism 
and  what  they  like  to  call  egoism. 

Upon  what,  then,  if  upon  anything,  is  founded  the 
moral  precept :  Thou  shalt  love  thy  neighbor  as  thy- 
self? Or  is  there  any  foundation  for  it  at  all  ?  To 
be  quite  familiar  in  discussing  this  problem,  let  us 
take  it  as  it  appears  in  recent  discussion.  The 


62  THE   RELIGIOUS   ASPECT    OF   PHILOSOPHY. 

answers  of  some  recent  moralists  will  illustrate  for 
us  afresh  the  great  problem  of  ethics.  We  shall  find 
two  classes  of  efforts  made  to  solve  the  difficulty.  On 
the  one  hand  moralists  appear  whose  tendency  is 
mainly,  although  not  always  quite  wholly  realistic. 
They  say  that,  assuming  the  selfish  aim  as  from  the 
beginning  self-evident,  the  unselfish  aim  soon  appears 
as  a  necessary  concomitant  and  assistant  of  the  self- 
ish aim.  Such  writers,  from  Hobbes  to  the  present 
day,  have  insisted  upon  unselfishness  as  a  more  or 
less  refined  selfishness,  the  product  of  enlightenment. 
To  this  view  one  opposes  very  naturally  the  objec- 
tion that  real  unselfishness  is  thus  in  fact  rendered 
impossible.  The  moral  ideal  resulting  is  therefore, 
whether  right  or  wrong  in  itself,  at  all  events  at  war 
with  other  well-known  ideals.  And  hence  the  expla- 
nation satisfies  nobody.  One  still  lacks  a  judge  to 
end  the  warfare. 

On  the  other  hand,  however,  more  idealistic  mor- 
alists have  tried  to  make  unselfishness  dependent  on 
some  impulse,  such  as  pity  or  sympathy,  whose  dic- 
tates shall  be  perfectly  definite  and  self-evident,  and 
yet  not,  like  the  supposed  dictates  of  conscience, 
either  abstract  or  mysterious.  But  to  such  a  foun- 
dation one  opposes  very  naturally  again  the  objec- 
tion that  all  such  judgments  of  feeling  are  capri- 
cious, that  pity  and  sympathy  are  confused  and 
deceitful  feelings,  wholly  unfit  to  give  moral  insight, 
and  that  no  ideal  can  be  founded  on  the  shifting  sand 
of  such  realities. 

The  results  of  such  criticisms  will  once  more  be 
skeptical,  but  the  skepticism  on  which  we  are  here 


ALTRUISM  AND   EGOISM.  63 

insisting  is  so  necessary  a  foundation  for  ethics,  that 
we  make  no  apology  for  dwelling  upon  it  yet  farther, 
devoting  to  the  special  problems  suggested  by  these 
recent  discussions  of  selfishness  and  unselfishness  a 
separate  chapter. 

I. 

In  a  collection  of  Servian  popular  tales  may  be 
found  one  that  runs  somewhat  as  follows :  Once  there 
lived  two  brothers,  of  whom  the  elder  was  very  in- 
cautious and  wasteful,  but  always  lucky,  so  that  in 
spite  of  himself  he  grew  constantly  richer,  while  the 
younger,  although  very  industrious  and  careful,  was 
invariably  unfortunate,  so  that  at  last  he  lost  every- 
thing, and  had  to  wander  out  into  the  wide  world  to 
beg.  The  poor  wretch,  after  much  suffering,  resolved 
to  go  to  no  less  a  person  than  Fate  himself,  and  to 
inquire  wherefore  he  had  been  thus  tormented.  Long 
and  dreadful  wildernesses  were  passed,  and  finally 
the  wanderer  reached  the  gloomy  house.  Now  visit- 
ors at  Fate's  dwelling  dare  not  begin  to  speak  when 
they  come,  but  must  wait  until  Fate  shall  address 
them,  and  meanwhile  must  humbly  do  after  Fate 
whatever  he  does.  So  the  wanderer  had  to  live  in 
the  house  for  several  days,  silent,  and  busily  imitat- 
ing Fate's  behavior.  He  found  that  Fate  lives  not 
always  in  the  same  way,  but  on  some  days  enjoys 
a  golden  bed,  with  a  rich  banquet  and  untold  heaps 
of  treasure  scattered  about ;  on  some  days  again  is 
surrounded  with  silver,  and  eats  dainty  but  some- 
what plainer  food ;  on  some  days  has  brazen  and 
copper  wealth  only,  with  coarse  food ;  and  on  some 


64  THE   RELIGIOUS   ASPECT    OF   PHILOSOPHY. 

days,  penniless  and  ragged,  sleeps  on  the  floor,  digs 
the  ground,  and  gnaws  a  crust.  Each  night  he  is 
asked  by  a  supernatural  voice:  "How  shall  those 
live  who  have  this  day  been  born  ?  "  Fate  always 
replies  :  "  As  I  have  fared  this  day,  so  may  they 
fare." 

Thus  our  beggar  found  the  secret  of  his  own  mis- 
fortunes ;  for  he  had  been  born  on  a  day  of  poverty. 
But  when  at  last  Fate  broke  the  silence,  the  visitor 
begged  him  to  tell  whether  there  could  be  any  way 
whereby  he  might  escape  from  the  consequences  of 
his  unlucky  birth.  "I  will  tell  thee,"  said  Fate. 
"  Get  thee  home  again,  and  ask  thy  brother  to  let 
thee  adopt  his  little  daughter.  For  she  was  born  on 
one  of  the  golden  days.  Adopting  her,  thou  shalt 
thenceforth  call  whatever  thou  receivest  her  own. 
But  never  call  anything  thine.  And  so  shalt  thou 
be  rich."  The  beggar  joyfully  left  Fate's  dreary 
house,  with  its  sad  round  of  days,  and  went  back  to 
the  world  of  labor  and  hope.  There,  by  following  the 
advice  that  he  had  received,  he  became  in  fact  very 
wealthy ;  since  all  that  he  undertook  prospered.  But 
the  wealth  was  his  adopted  daughter's.  For  always 
he  called  his  gains  hers.  One  day  he  grew  however 
very  weary  of  this,  and  said  to  himself :  "  These  fields 
and  flocks  and  houses  and  treasures  are  not  really 
hers.  In  truth  I  have  earned  them.  They  are  mine." 
No  sooner  had  he  spoken  the  fatal  words  than  light- 
ning fell  from  heaven  and  began  to  burn  his  grain- 
fields,  and  the  floods  rose  to  drown  his  flocks.  So 
that  terror-stricken  the  wretch  fell  on  his  face  and 
cried :  "  Nay,  nay,  O  Fate,  I  spoke  no  truth ;  they 


ALTRUISM   AND   EGOISM.  65 

are  not  mine,  but  hers,  hers  alone."  And  thereupon 
flame  and  flood  vanished,  and  the  man  dwelt  thence- 
forth in  peace  and  plenty. 


II. 

The  really  deep  thought  that  imperfectly  expresses 
itself  in  this  little  Servian  tale  may  suggest  many 
sorts  of  reflections.  Just  now  we  shall  busy  our- 
selves with  only  one  of  the  questions  that  are  brought 
to  mind  by  the  story.  Many  who  nowadays  have 
much  to  say  about  what  they  call  altruism,  actually 
explain  all  altruism  as  a  kind  of  selfish  evasion  of 
the  consequences  of  cruder  selfishness,  so  that  at 
bottom  they  really  counsel  men  much  as  Fate  coun- 
seled the  wanderer.  They  say  in  effect :  "  To  make 
thyself  happy,  do  certain  things  called  duties  to  thy 
neighbor.  That  we  call  altruism.  Thou  shalt  have 
thy  reward.  For  what  is  more  useful  to  a  man  than 
a  man?  If  therefore  thou  dost  well  to  him,  thou 
shalt  make  him  in  many  ways  of  great  service  to 
thee.  And  so,  to  get  happiness  for  thyself,  see  that 
thou  be  not  openly  merely  a  seeker  of  thy  happi- 
ness ;  but  ^call  that  which  thou  seekest  his  happiness. 
Calling  it  his  will  help  to  make  it  thine.  Be  selfish 
by  casting  aside  grosser  selfishness.  Live  for  the 
others  as  the  means  of  living  for  thyself.  In  co- 
operation is  safety.  Act  therefore  as  a  good  mem- 
ber of  the  community,  and  thou  shalt  prosper.  But 
such  action  requires  altruism.  As  the  man  gave  his 
wealth  to  his  adopted  daughter,  so  that  he  might 
own  it  himself  and  outwit  his  destiny,  so  must  thou 
5 


66  THE   RELIGIOUS  ASPECT   OF   PHILOSOPHY. 

make  thy  interests  into  the  interests  of  society,  and 
by  so  doing  be  true  to  thyself."  But  now  such  al- 
truism, as  one  at  once  sees,  has  no  right  to  parade 
itself  as  genuine  altruism  at  all,  and  if  it  be  the  end 
of  conduct,  there  is  no  moral  conduct  distinct  from 
cleverness.  But  if  this  be  true,  it  is  at  least  incum- 
bent upon  the  moralist  to  explain  why  the  popular 
ideal  of  unselfishness  is  thus  so  very  far  wrong. 

More  or  less  disguised,  the  doctrine  here  generally 
stated  appears  in  modern  discussion  since  Hobbes. 
Let  us  follow  it  into  some  of  its  hiding-places,  and 
to  that  end  let  us  distinguish  selfishness  and  unself- 
ishness as  ideals  or  ends  of  conduct,  from  selfishness 
and  unselfishness  as  means,  accidentally  useful  to 
get  an  end. 

III. 

Altruism  is  the  name  of  a  tendency.  Of  what 
tendency  ?  Is  it  the  result  or  the  intent  that  makes 
a  deed  altruistic  ?  Was  our  hero  an  altruist  when 
he  gave  to  his  adopted  daughter  the  name  and  the 
enjoyment  of  a  possessor  of  wealth  ?  Or  would  he 
have  needed  in  addition  to  all  this  a  particular  dis- 
position of  mind  ere  he  could  be  called  an  altruist  ? 

We  need  not  dispute  about  mere  names  as  such. 
Let  everybody  apply  the  name  Altruism  as  he  will ; 
but  possibly  we  shall  do  well  to  recall  to  the  reader's 
mind  what  ought  nowadays  to  be  the  merest  com- 
monplace of  ethics,  namely,  that  we  cannot  regard 
any  quality  as  moral  or  the  reverse,  in  so  far  as  the 
expression  of  it  is  an  external  accident,  with  which 
the  man  himself  and  his  deliberate  aim  have  nothing 


ALTRUISM   AND   EGOISM.  67 

to  do.  Ethical  judgments  deal  with  purposes.  On 
any  theory  of  right  and  wrong  the  man  himself,  not 
the  accident  of  fortune,  determines  the  moral  char- 
acter of  his  act ;  and  this  view  must  be  held  equally 
whether  one  believes  the  man's  will  to  be  free  or  to 
be  bound.  Hence  the  unforeseen  or  unintended  out- 
come, or  any  other  accidental  accompaniment  of  my 
act,  does  not  make  me  egoistic  or  altruistic  in  case 
egoism  and  altruism  are  to  be  qualities  that  have 
any  moral  character  at  all.  If  my  property  is  acci- 
dentally destroyed  by  fire,  and  if  the  loss  causes  great 
damage  to  my  creditors  or  to  people  dependent  on 
me,  the  loss  makes  me  no  less  or  more  an  altruist, 
although  I  can  no  longer  do  good  as  before.  If  my 
purely  selfish  plan  chances  to  do  others  good,  I  am 
no  less  an  egoist,  although  I  have  made  my  fellows 
happy.  In  short,  he  who  means  anything,  and  does 
what  he  can  to  realize  his  intention,  must  be  judged 
according  to  his  intent.  Circumstances  control  the 
outcome,  and  they  make  of  the  chance  discoverer  of 
the  first  bit  of  gold  in  a  California  mill  -  race  a 
greater  altruist,  to  judge  solely  by  consequences, 
than  a  hero  would  be  who  sacrificed  himself  in  a  good 
cause,  and  lost  the  battle.  But  no  moral  system 
could  make  genuine  saintliness  out  of  the  deed  of 
the  man  who  by  chance  has  found  what  the  world 
needed.  And  to  take  one  more  example,  the  power 
die  stets  das  Bose  will,  und  stets  das  Grute  schafft, 
is  not  altruistic  in  the  moral  sense,  however  vast  its 
creations  may  become. 

All  this  we  maintain,  because,  if  you  are  morally 
criticising  a  disposition,  you  must  study  what  it  is, 


68  THE   RELIGIOUS   ASPECT   OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

not  what  are  its  accidental  surroundings.  Moral 
distinctions  must  apply  to  aims  as  such.  Unless 
you  are  judging  men  exactly  as  you  judge  the  north 
wind  or  the  value  of  rain,  not  as  consciously  good  or 
bad,  but  as  mere  forces  that  happen  to  produce  such 
and  such  results  under  such  and  such  conditions, 
you  must  study,  not  first  the  accidental  circum- 
stances, but  the  men.  And  in  fact  all  moralists, 
however  much  they  may  condemn  the  weighing  of 
mere  motives,  however  much  they  desire  to  take  just 
the  consequences  into  account,  as  Bentharn  did,  are 
nevertheless  forced  to  separate  in  their  moral  judg- 
ments accidental  from  expected  consequences.  We 
maintain  that  this  abstraction  of  a  disposition  from 
its  accidental  expressions  must  be  rigidly  carried 
out  in  order  to  get  a  n^pral  doctrine  of  any  sig- 
nificance. Let  others  study  natural  forces.  We 
here  are  studying  men,  and  are  considering  what 
ideal  of  a  man  we  can  form.  Whatever  the  acci- 
dents of  the  outer  world  give  him  in  the  way  of 
means,  we  want  to  know  his  real  intent,  and  to  judge 
that.  But  if  the  intent  of  the  man  does  alone  make 
him  altruistic  or  the  reverse,  then  what,  for  example, 
is  the  position,  in  ethical  controversy,  of  any  system 
that  declares  altruism  to  be  morally  good  because  the 
individual  needs  the  social  order  to  assist  him,  and 
must  therefore  in  all  prudence  try  to  further  the  so- 
cial ends  as  a  means  to  the  furthering  of  his  own  ? 
Does  such  a  system  say  anything  whatever  about 
altruism  as  such  ?  Does  it  not  make  enlightened 
egoism  the  one  rule  of  life  ?  And  if  this  is  what  is 
meant,  why  not  say  so  plainly  ?  If  the  intent  of  the 


ALTRUISM   AND   EGOISM.  69 

act  makes  it  altruistic  or  the  reverse,  then  a  man 
who  helps  his  friend,  or  his  neighbor,  or  society,  and 
who  is  honest,  and  kind,  and  public- spirited  solely  be- 
cause he  wants  to  get  protection  and  help  in  return, 
is  no  altruist,  but  is  as  egoistic  as  a  Judas  or  as  a 
Thoniassen.  He  is  only  clearer-headed  than  they 
were.  On  the  other  hand,  if  by  any  possibility  any 
one  makes  the  good  of  others  his  sole  end,  and  with 
this  as  end  takes  care  of  his  own  health,  or  devel- 
ops his  mental  powers,  or  amasses  wealth,  but  all 
merely  for  the  sake  of  being  able  to  benefit  others, 
then  is  such  a  man  not  egoistic,  even  while  working 
for  himself,  but  altruistic  throughout.  For  such  a 
man  by  hypothesis  aims,  not  at  his  own  personal 
good,  but  solely  at  the  good  of  others. 

All  this  is  consequent  upon  the  general  doctrine 
that  the  distinction  between  altruism  and  egoism,  as 
moral  qualities,  must  depend  on  no  external  acci- 
dent, but  on  the  personal  deed  of  the  man  himself. 
For,  to  make  special  mention  of  what  many  forget, 
the  means  that  you  take  to  get  any  end  are  for  you 
merely  physical  accidents.  If  things  were  other- 
wise, you  would  with  the  same  intent  do  other  things 
to  get  what  you  seek.  Not  what  you  have  to  do  in 
getting  your  ends,  but  what  you  actually  aimed  at,  is 
morally  significant.  Hence  the  altruism  of  conse- 
quences as  such  is  morally  insignificant,  and  the  al- 
truism of  intent  is  alone  morally  significant.  But 
yet  this  obvious  and  seemingly  very  commonplace 
distinction  is,  by  the  views  that  we  are  combating, 
wholly  lost  sight  of  in  its  further  application  to  hu- 
man life.  We  may  hear  in  modern  controversy, 


70  THE  RELIGIOUS  ASPECT   OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

for  instance,  of  a  "conflict  between  altruism  and 
egoism,"  such  as  the  one  that  Mr.  Spencer  discusses 
in  his  "  Data  of  Ethics,"  and  we  may  draw  near  to 
learn  how  the  conflict  goes.  We  shall  possibly  find 
the  question  put  thus  :  If  a  man  in  trying  to  be 
altruistic  were  so  far  to  forget  himself  as  to  injure 
his  health,  or  to  become  so  weak  as  to  have  no 
healthy  children  ;  if  he  were  to  be  careless  of  his 
property,  to  let  his  mind  go  untrained,  or  to  narrow 
his  own  life  too  much,  why  then  his  own  objects 
would  be  defeated,  he  would  be  unable  to  help  any- 
body, he  might  do  harm,  and  he  could  be  no  genuine 
altruist.  Therefore  altruism  must  not  oppose  ego- 
{\  *  ism  too  much,  else  altruism  will  defeat  itself.  On 
the  other  hand,  we  hear,  if  egoism  is  extravagant,  it 
will  in  its  turn  fail  to  get  its  own  great  end,  self-sat- 
isfaction. For  it  is  useful  to  one  to  have  his  fellow- 
members  in  the  social  organism  well-contented,  effi- 
cient, and  moral.  One  must  try  to  make  them  so, 
that  he  himself  may  enjoy  the  fruits  of  their  happi- 
ness. He  pays  more  taxes,  and  also  higher  prices 
for  what  he  buys,  if  the  community  as  a  whole  is 
not  contented  and  happy,  as  well  as  healthy  and 
moral.  Enlightened  selfishness  therefore  means  for 
him  public  spirit.  His  neighbor's  diseases  are  apt 
to  infect  his  own  family  ;  hence,  if  enlightened,  he 
will  do  what  he  conveniently  can  to  keep  his  neigh- 
bor well.  His  neighbor's  peace  of  mind  tends  to 
make  his  own  mind  peaceful,  hence  he  will  help  his 
neighbor  out  of  trouble.  Otherwise  he  would  have 
to  live  in  anxiety,  loneliness,  weakness,  and  danger. 
His  life  would  be  hard,  and  probably  his  death  would 


ALTRUISM  AND   EGOISM.  71 

be  early.  So  egoism  must  not  be  too  extravagant.  7 
Altruism  is  "  equally  imperative."  Thus,  perhaps, 
we  should  hear  the  so-called  "  conflict "  discussed. 
If  such  views  were  urged,  what  should  we  say  about 
them  ?  We  should  have  to  say  that  they  touch  in 
no  wise  at  all  the  true  moral  distinction  and  warfare 
between  selfishness  and  altruism.  They  show  only 
that,  whatever  the  opposition  in  aim,  the  two  princi- 
pies  have  after  all,  in  this  world  of  limitation,  to 
use  very  much  the  same  means.  Surely  it  is  no 
new  thing  to  learn  that  in  warfare  both  parties  have 
to  burn  the  same  quality  of  gunpowder,  and  that 
even  the  cats  when  they  fight  all  have  to  scratch 
with  claws  that  are  very  much  alike.  Do  such  re- 
marks explain  or  tend  to  diminish  or  to  end  the  con- 
flicts in  question  ? 

How  insignificant  is  this  way  of  studying  the  con- 
flict of  egoism  and  altruism,  we  shall  see  if  we  take 
yet  other  illustrations.  In  the  sense  of  the  fore- 
going comparison  of  egoism  and  altruism,  even  a 
pirate,  in  his  treatment  of  merchant  vessels,  would 
have  to  be  moderately  altruistic  ;  namely,  he  had 
better  not  try  to  do  harm  to  a  merchant  vessel  that 
is  too  well  armed  for  his  force  to  overcome  it.  On 
the  contrary,  his  egoism  will  in  this  case  counsel  him 
unselfishly  to  let  it  prosper  in  its  own  way.  Nay, 
he  may  even  try  to  speed  it  on  its  course,  if  it  ap- 
pears disposed  to  change  roles  and  to  attack  him. 
He  may  say  that  in  just  this  case  he  thinks  that  this 
merchantman  ought  to  have  peace,  and  to  be  pre- 
served from  injury.  The  other  alternative  would 
just  here  increase  his  own  bill  for  repairs,  or  might 


72  THE   RELIGIOUS   ASPECT   OF   PHILOSOPHY. 

make  his  own  existence  less  happy,  or  might  even 
bring  him  to  the  gallows.  The  happiness  of  the 
crew  of  the  merchantman  is  therefore  just  now  an 
object  of  concern  for  him,  as  perhaps  furthering  his 
own.  So  he  may  be  willing  to  compromise  the  dif- 
ficulty, even  if  it  should  cost  him  a  large  sum  to  per- 
suade the  belligerent  captain  of  the  armed  merchant- 
man to  let  him  alone.  Thus  he  might  even  add 
quite  a  fortune  to  what  the  merchantman's  captain 
and  crew  already  have  of  good  things,  and  this 
would  surely  be  very  marked  altruism.  Thus  ego- 
ism and  altruism  may  oppose  each  other,  and  thus, 
by  careful  calculation,  their  opposing  claims  may  be 
balanced !  Or  yet  again,  suppose  that  a  robber 
meets  me  in  the  highway,  and  egoistically  demands 
my  purse.  If  now  I  should  manage  to  disarm  him, 
to  present  a  pistol  to  his  head,  and  to  ask  him  to 
accompany  me  to  the  nearest  town,  evidently  the 
claims  of  altruism  would  for  that  man  have  a  consid- 
erably stronger  emphasis  than  they  had  the  moment 
before.  He  would  now  be  willing  not  merely  to 
live  and  let  live  in  peace  for  the  present ;  he  would 
not  merely  be  delighted  to  recognize  my  rights  of 
property  and  to  leave  me  free  to  enjoy  them ;  but  he 
would  undoubtedly  be  glad  to  increase  my  happiness 
by  giving  me  anything  of  value  that  he  might  have 
about  him,  or  any  information  of  value  to  me  that  I 
might  desire,  if  by  such  means  he  could  get  me  to 
let  him  go  free.  A  great  altruist  would  my  robber 
now  be,  however  great  his  egoism  just  before. 

Now  do  such  discussions  of  the  claims  of  egoism 
and  altruism  mean  anything  for  the  moralist  ?     But 


ALTRUISM   AND   EGOISM.  73 

if  somebody  tells  us  of  the  altruism  that  leads  a  man 
to  advocate  good  drainage  lest  he  himself  may  have 
a  fever,  of  the  altruism  that  pays  one's  debts  to  the 
sole  end  that  one  may  get  further  credit,  of  the  sub- 
lime unselfishness  that  makes  a  man  civil  even  to 
his  rivals,  because  civility  in  these  days  is  a  social 
requirement,  —  what  have  all  these  wondrous  virtues 
to  do  in  constituting  the  moral  value  of  altruism  as 
a  disposition,  more  than  have  the  virtues  just  illus- 
trated ?  We  have  two  dispositions  in  us :  one  order-  * 
ing  us  to  respect  our  neighbor  as  such,  to  labor  in  • 
his  behalf  because  he  exists  and  needs  help ;  the  * 
other  demanding  that  we  regard  him  as  a  mere  in-  • 
strument  for  our  personal  pleasure.  Only  the  dis- 
positions as  such  concern  the  moralist.  Surely  in 
fundamental  ethics  we  are  discussing  what  we  ought 
to  aim  at,  not  how  we  can  get  our  aims,  so  long  at 
least  as  we  confine  ourselves  to  the  general  princi- 
ples. Applied  morality  may  have  much  to  say  of 
means.  But  of  principles,  this  balancing  of  means 
can  tell  us  nothing.  The  means  are  the  physical  ac- 
cidents, nothing  more.  What  we  want  to  know  is 
whether  egoism  as  an  aim  is  morally  the  worthiest 
aim,  or  whether  altruism  is  a  morally  better  aim. 
And  we  ask  not  yet  how,  if  one's  aim  is  egoistic,  he 
can  most  successfully  be  selfish,  but  only  whether 
one's  aim  ought  to  be  selfish,  and  in  how  far.  To  tell 
us  that  if  we  are  sensible  and  selfish  we  shall  avoid 
having  too  much  trouble  with  our  fellows,  is  not  to  tell 
us  that  our  aims  ought  to  be  altruistic,  but  only  that 
sensible  selfish  men  are  not  fools.  To  tell  us  that 
if  we  are  wise  and  altruistic  we  shall  avoid  wasting 


74  THE   RELIGIOUS   ASPECT   OF   PHILOSOPHY. 

our  own  powers  profitlessly,  and  shall  try  to  preserve 
our  own  health,  and  to  cultivate  our  own  wits  in  use- 
ful ways,  all  this  is  to  tell  us  that  unselfish  wise  men 
are  not  fanatics.  It  may  be  useful  to  say  this,  but 
it  is  not  useful  to  the  discussion  of  fundamental 
moral  doctrines.  We  want  to  know,  for  the  first, 
not  how  successfully  to  be  altruistic,  or  selfish,  but 
why  the  effort  to  be  altruistic  or  to  be  selfish  is  mor- 
ally right  or  wrong. 

IV. 

If  now  such  comparisons  of  the  claims  of  altru- 
ism and  egoism  throw  no  light  on  the  fundamental 
moral  questions,  what  shall  we  say  of  the  chance  that 
the  "  conflict "  may  be  explained  or  diminished  by 
any  proof  that  the  evolution  of  our  race  will  tend  in 
time  to  diminish,  or  even  to  extinguish,  the  opposi- 
tion ?  If  some  one  shows  us  that  by  and  by  the  most 
selfish  being  in  the  social  order  will  find  it  his  own 
bliss  to  give  as  much  bliss  as  he  can  to  everybody 
else,  so  that  men  shall  all  be  even  as  the  people  at  a 
successful  party,  getting  pleasure  as  freely  as  they 
give  it,  and  giving  it  because  they  get  it :  and  if 
such  predictions  seem  to  anybody  to  help  us  to  know 
what  duty  is,  then  what  can  we  say  in  reply,  save  to 
wonder  at  the  insight  that  sees  the  connection  be- 
tween all  these  facts  and  our  present  duty?  If  a 
society  ever  does  grow  up  in  which  there  are  no 
moral  conflicts,  nothing  but  a  tedious  cooing  of  bliss 
from  everybody,  then  in  that  society  there  will  be 
no  moral  questions  asked.  But  none  the  less  we 
ask  such.  If  the  people  of  that  day  no  longer  dis- 


ALTRUISM   AND   EGOISM.  75 

tinguish  egoism  from  altruism,  they  may  all  be 
blessed :  but  what  is  that  to  us  ?  We  ask,  What 
ought  we  to  do  ?  We  learn  in  answer  that  the  peo- 
ple of  the  future  will  feel  no  need  to  ask  that  ques- 
tion. We  desire  that  duty  be  defined.  We  learn 
in  answer  that  if  men  ever  get  perfect,  the  sense  of 
obligation  will  vanish,  so  that  nobody  will  question : 
What  is  duty  ?  at  all.  This  may  be  magnificent,  but 
it  is  not  ethics. 

For  what  do  we  really  learn  by  hearing  about  the 
society  of  the  future  ?  Only  that,  in  the  time  com- 
ing, there  will  be  such  and  such  freedom  from  moral 
problems  ?  Do  we  then  also  learn  that  we  ought 
to  do  our  best  to  bring  about  that  reign  of  peace  ? 
Not  at  all,  for  we  are  sure  that  we  shall  never  live 
to  see  that  day ;  and  we  cannot  know  why  we  should 
work  for  it  so  long  as  we  are  still  in  doubt  about  the 
value  of  selfishness.  Do  we  learn  that  we  ought  to 
conform  as  nearly  as  is  possible  to  the  rules  that  will 
govern  men  in  that  ideal  state  ?  But  how  then  do 
we  learn  that  ?  Is  it  because  the  coming  form  of 
conduct  will  be  the  "  highest  form  of  adjustment  of 
acts  to  ends"  as  the  modern  apostles  of  evolution 
teach  that  it  will  be?  Nay,  though  we  do  accept 
most  confidently  all  that-  these  apostles  teach  about 
the  future,  since  surely  they  must  know  about  it,  we 
still  miss  anything  of  moral  significance  in  these 
physical  facts.  For  why  is  this  coming  state  the 
highest  ?  Does  any  one  say :  Because  it  will  come 
at  the  end  of  the  physical  process  of  evolution  ? 
Nay  then,  if  every  more  advanced  state  is  to  be  more 
acceptable,  by  such  reasoning  the  sprouting  potato 


76  THE   RELIGIOUS   ASPECT   OF   PHILOSOPHY. 

or  the  incubating  egg  would  always  be  more  accept- 
able than  the  fresh  potato  or  the  fresh  egg.  Highest, 
as  last,  or  as  most  complex,  or  even  as  most  perma- 
nent, cannot  be  in  meaning  identical  with  the  mor- 
ally highest  that  we  want  defined  for  us.  We  ought 
to  work  for  the  realization  of  that  far-off  state,  if  at 
all,  then,  because  we  see  it  to  be,  not  merely  the  last 
in  point  of  time,  but  also  actually  the  best,  and  that 
for  some  other  reason  than  this  physical  one.  But 
once  more  then,  why  is  it  best  ?  And  why  ought  we 
to  try  to  realize  it  ?  Because  in  that  state,  every 
individual  will  be  happiest  ?  But  then  we  want  to 
know  what  we  now  are  to  do,  and  we  see  that  this 
future  happiness  will  be  at  present  for  us  unattain- 
able. If  we  were  in  that  state  we  should  be  happy. 
But  it  is  not  at  all  plain  that,  by  trying  to  approach 
it,  we  shall  now  be  making  ourselves  any  happier. 
And  why  should  we  do  anything  unselfish  ? 

Evolution  then,  as  a  mere  prospect,  throws  no 
light  on  the  real  and  fundamental  meaning  of  duty. 
If  we  know  what  we  are  to  try  to  do,  then  we  can 
judge  whether  we  ought  to  help  or  to  hinder  evolu- 
tion as  a  means  to  that  end.  But  unless  we  know 
our  duty  otherwise,  there  is  nothing  in  the  mere 
physical  fact  of  evolution  that  indicates  what  is  mor- 
ally higher  or  lower,  better  or  worse.  Why  should 
I  work  for  future  ages,  if  it  is  not  already  quite 
plain,  apart  from  any  knowledge  of  evolution,  that  I 
ought  to  do  what  I  can  just  now  for  my  brother 
here? 

After  all,  however,  it  is  another  aspect  of  evolu- 
tion upon  which  nowadays  most  stress  is  laid  in 


ALTRUISM   AND   EGOISM.  77 

ethics.  It  is  said  that,  the  future  aside,  evolution 
has  made  us  what  we  now  are,  and,  in  particular,  has 
formed  our  society,  and  us  for  society.  Hence  not 
only  is  our  welfare  in  fact  best  served  by  a  wise  al- 
truism, but  this  fact  is  plain  to  us  in  our  very  organ- 
ization and  instincts.  Therefore  while  throughout 
our  aim  is  our  happiness,  our  nature  has  been  so  or- 
ganized by  generations  of  social  evolution  as  to  make 
pretty  certain  that  our  happiness  is  already  depen- 
dent on  our  good  character  as  social  beings.  There- 
fore the  doctrine  of  evolution  shows  that  selfishness 
must  itself  become  even  in  our  day  altruistic  if  it 
would  be  successful. 

Is  this  aspect  of  evolution  any  more  ethical  than 
the  other?  That  is,  does  it  show  us,  not  the  means, 
but  the  moral  End  ?  We  must  deny  that  it  does.  To 
be  sure,  if  we  never  actually  felt  any  conflict  between 
egoism  and  altruism  as  dispositions,  then  indeed  for 
us  just  that  ethical  problem  would  not  exist.  But 
we  do  feel  a  conflict.  And  since  for  us  our  selfish- 
ness is  not  altruistic  in  aim,  it  is  quite  useless  to  try 
to  make  the  warring  impulses  one  by  declaring  that 
a  perfectly  enlightened  selfishness,  even  in  our  own 
society,  would  be  altruistic,  not  indeed  in  aim,  but  in 
consequences.  For,  in  the  first  place,  that  would 
actually  be  a  false  statement  for  our  present  social 
condition  ;  since  it  is  still  quite  possible  for  a  clever 
selfish  man  to  live  very  comfortably,  by  somehow 
legally  wronging  and  oppressing  others.  And,  in  the 
second  place,  if  the  statement  were  true,  it  would  be 
ethically  worthless.  For  if  good  treatment  of  others 
is  uniformly  the  behavior  that  is,  selfishly  viewed,  the 


78  THE   RELIGIOUS   ASPECT   OF   PHILOSOPHY. 

most  advantageous,  the  man  who  acts  upon  that  prin- 
ciple is  still  selfish,  not  altruistic  at  all,  and  he  has 
not  solved  for  himself  the  conflict  between  the  two 
principles,  save  by  utterly  disregarding  the  principle 
of  altruism.  If  altruism  were  the  only  goodness, 
then  altruism  of  aim  would  be  goodness  still,  what- 
ever the  selfish  consequences.  If  altruism  needs  to 
be  limited  in  any  way  by  selfishness,  then  the  limit- 
ation must  still  be  a  matter  of  aim,  not  of  accidental 
result.  Altruism  as  a  means  to  selfish  ends  would 
however  be  no  aim  at  all,  but  only  an  accidental 
tool.  If  circumstances  varied,  it  would  be  cast 
aside,  while  the  selfish  aim  itself  remained  constant. 
J.  S.  Mill,  following  others,  tried  to  distinguish 
the  motive  from  the  intent  of  an  act.  According  to 
this  distinction,  a  selfish  act  would  be  altruistic  by 
intent,  if  there  was  in  it  the  deliberate  purpose  to  make 
somebody  happy,  however  selfish  the  motive  of  the 
act.  So  it  would  be  altruism  to  be  deliberately  and 
selfishly  just.  But  this  distinction,  however  useful 
for  some  purposes,  is  for  our  purpose  worthless. 
The  question  is :  What  in  the  act  belongs  to  the 
man,  and  what  is  this  part  of  the  act  worth  ?  Now 
whatever  belongs  not  to  the  actor,  but  to  the  condi- 
tions under  which  he  works,  is  morally  insignifi- 
cant. For  it  is  what  we  have  called  the  physical 
accident  of  his  surroundings.  But  intent,  apart 
from  motive,  seems  to  be  just  such  a  physical  acci- 
dent ;  for  intent,  apart  from  motive,  must  relate,  not 
to  the  real  aim  as  such,  but  only  to  the  means.  A 
man  aims  to  be  selfish.  If  now  he  lives  where  his 
selfishness  requires  him  to  feed  and  clothe  his  enemy, 


ALTRUISM   AND   EGOISM.  79 

• 

he  will,  if  enlightened,  do  so,  and  deliberately  too. 
And  he  will  show  in  the  act  just  as  much  and  just  as 
little  charity  as  he  would  have  shown  had  he  lived 
where  selfishness  was  best  served  by  killing  his 
enemy,  and  had  he  killed  him.  The  intent,  apart 
from  the  motive  of  the  man,  can  have  reference  only 
to  the  means  by  which  he  seeks  to  get  his  ultimate 
aim.  And  such  intent  relates  to  accidental  matters. 
If  by  a  physical  accident  the  selfish  man  grows  up 
where  you  must  speak  politely  to  your  antagonist, 
and  treat  him  with  great  show  of  respect,  then  the 
selfish  man  will  deliberately,  and  with  conscious  in- 
tent, do  so ;  and  if  he  grows  up  where  you  challenge 
your  antagonist  to  a  duel,  he  will  possibly  try  that 
way  of  getting  rid  of  an  enemy;  and  if  he  lives 
among  the  cannibals,  the  selfish  man,  no  more  or 
less  selfish  than  in  the  other  cases,  only  by  training 
more  brutal  in  tastes,  will  torture  and  eat  his  antag- 
onist. And  if  the  doctrine  of  evolution  shows  that 
one  of  these  forms  of  "  adaptation  "  is  more  complete 
than  another,  or  proves  to  us  that  we  personally  shall 
be  most  prudent  in  adopting  one  only  of  the  possible 
courses,  all  this  can  in  no  wise  tell  us  what  aim  in 
conduct  is  morally  best,  but  only  what  means  most 
exhaustively  accomplish  the  selfish  purposes  of  a 
civilized  man.  So  intent  is  morally  valuable  only 
in  connection  with  motive. 

It  is  hardly  worth  while  to  dwell  longer  on  the 
curious  devices  by  which  certain  defenders  of  the 
application  of  the  hypothesis  of  evolution  to  ques- 
tions of  fundamental  ethics  have  tried  to  establish 
that  the  truths  of  evolution  teach  us  that  we  ought 


80  THE  RELIGIOUS  ASPECT   OF   PHILOSOPHY. 

to  do  right.  The  whole  undertaking  resembles  that 
of  a  man  who  should  try  to  show  us  that  the  truth 
of  the  law  of  gravitation  clearly  indicates  that  we 
all  ought  to  sit  down.  What  is  evident  or  doubtful 
apart  from  the  law  of  evolution,  cannot,  in  this  field, 
be  proved  or  disproved  by  the  law.  Shall  we  say  : 
"  Do  good  to  thy  neighbor  to-day,  because  evolution 
tends  to  bring  into  existence  a  race  of  future  beings 
who  will  do  good  ?  "  To  say  this  is  to  say  something 
utterly  irrelevant.  What  do  we  care  about  remote 
posterity,  unless  we  already  care  about  our  neigh- 
bors as  they  are  ?  Or  shall  we  say  :  "  Do  good  to 
thy  neighbor  because  evolution  has  made  thee  a 
social  being,  whose  instincts  lead  thee  to  desire  thy 
neighbor's  good?"  To  say  this  is  to  say  what  is 
only  very  imperfectly  true.  One's  instincts  often 
lead  him  to  take  much  selfish  delight  in  thwarting 
his  neighbor.  If  it  were  true  universally  and 
strictly,  it  would  not  show  us  why  to  do  right,  nor 
yet  what  is  right.  For  it  is  not  obviously  a  funda- 
mental ethical  doctrine  that  we  ought  to  follow  an 
instinct  as  such.  And  if  we  follow  an  instinct  be- 
cause we  find  it  pleasing,  our  aim  is  still  not  to  do 
any  right  save  what  pleases  us  personally.  And  the 
whole  wisdom  of  the  doctrine  of  evolution  would  be 
reduced  to  the  assurance  that  we  ought  to  do  as  we 
like,  with  due  regard  to  prudence.  Shall  we  then 
say:  "Do  good,  because  the  social  order  that  has 
evolved  is  too  strong  for  thee,  and  will  hurt  thee 
unless  thou  submittest  to  it?"  Still  one  has  the 
selfish  motive  insisted  upon,  and  morality  is  still 
only  prudence.  And  the  doctrine  will  still  have  to 


ALTRUISM   AND   EGOISM.  81 

admit  that  whenever  one  can  outwit  society  pru- 
dently, and  can  gain  for  himself  his  selfish  aims  by 
anti-social  but  for  him  in  this  case  safe  means,  then 
and  there  the  selfish  man  may  do  this  anti-social 
thing  if  he  likes,  the  doctrine,  with  all  its  good  mo- 
tives, being  unable  to  show  why  not.  For  it  will  not 
do  to  resort  to  some  such  subterfuge  as  this,  and  to 
say :  "  A  man's  advantage  depends  upon  the  pros- 
perity of  the  whole.  But  anti-social  acts  ultimately 
tend  to  weaken  society.  Hence  they  ultimately  tend 
to  diminish  the  prosperity  of  the  whole,  and  there- 
fore tend  to  harm  the  selfish  individual."  All  this 
is  irrelevant,  in  case  the  social  consequences  cannot 
return  upon  the  selfish  individual's  head  during  his 
lifetime.  The  wasteful  owners  of  great  forests  in 
our  western  mountains,  the  great  and  oppressive 
capitalists  that  crush  rivals  and  outwit  the  public, 
the  successful  speculators,  the  national  leaders  whose 
possession  of  the  biggest  battalions  enables  them  to 
demand  of  weaker  neighbors  unjust  sacrifices,  all 
these  may  listen  in  scorn  to  talk  about  their  prosper- 
ity as  dependent  upon  that  of  society,  their  enemies 
and  victims  included.  "  We  eat  the  fruit,"  they  can 
say.  "  To  be  sure  we  consume  it  by  eating,  and  we 
like  to  waste  it  so  long  as  we  ourselves  profit  by  the 
waste,  and  we  could  neither  eat  it  nor  waste  it  if 
there  were  no  fruit ;  but  there  is  enough  to  last  us 
and  our  children  for  our  lifetimes.  After  us  the 
social  famine,  but  for  others,  not  for  us."  The  now 
famous  reply  ascribed  to  one  of  our  great  railroad 
kings  when,  some  time  since,  he  was  asked  about  the 
"  accommodation  of  the  public  "  by  a  certain  train, 


82  THE   RELIGIOUS  ASPECT   OF   PHILOSOPHY. 

well  illustrates  our  point.  "  Damn  the  public,"  said 
the  great  servant  and  master  of  the  traveling  world. 
If  he  really  did  not  say  that,  very  likely  there  are 
those  who  would  have  meant  it.  And  may  the  evo- 
lutionist condemn  them  solely  on  his  own  grounds  ? 

Or  finally,  shall  the  doctrine  retreat  behind  an 
ancient  maxim,  and  state  itself  thus :  "  Evolution 
shows  us  what  are  the  ultimate  tendencies  of  acts ; 
but  no  act  ought  to  be  committed  which  belongs  to 
a  class  of  acts  whose  general  tendency  is  bad "  ? 
Would  not  this  be  a  lamentable  surrender  of  the 
whole  position  ?  Yet  such  a  surrender  is  found  in 
one  or  two  passages  of  the  book  that  is  nowadays 
supposed  best  to  represent  the  doctrine  that  we  have 
been  criticising  in  the  foregoing,  namely,  in  Mr.  Spen- 
cer's "Data  of  Ethics."  The  physical  facts  of  evo- 
lution are  to  give  us  our  ideal.  How?  By  telling 
us  what  in  the  long  run,  for  the  world  at  large,  pro- 
duces happiness.  But  if  my  individual  happiness  in 
the  concrete  case  is  hindered  by  what  happens  to  be 
known  to  help  in  the  long  run  towards  the  produc- 
tion of  general  happiness,  how  shall  the  general  rule 
be  applicable  to  my  case  ?  Mr.  Spencer  replies,  in 
effect,  that  the  concrete  consequences  for  individuals 
must  not  be  judged,  but  only  the  general  tendency 
of  the  act.  Happiness  is  the  ultimate  end  ;  but  in 
practice  the  "  general  conditions  of  happiness  "  must 
be  the  proximate  end.  But  how  is  this  clear  ?  If  I 
know  in  a  given  case  what  will  make  me  happy,  and 
if  the  means  to  my  happiness  are  not  the  general 
ones  at  all,  but,  in  this  concrete  case,  something  con- 
flicting therewith,  why  should  I  not  do  as  I  please  ? 


ALTRUISM  AND   EGOISM.  83 

Because,  Mr.  Spencer  says,  the  concrete  case  must 
be  tested  by  the  general  law  of  Evolution.  But  once 
more,  why  ?  The  only  answer  is  the  principle,  which 
Mr.  Spencer  sometimes  tacitly  assumes,  sometimes 
very  grudgingly  acknowledges,  sometimes  seems  to 
claim  as  his  peculiar  property,  namely,  the  well- 
known  Kantian  principle,  that  nothing  should  be 
done  which  we  could  not  wish  to  see  done  universally^ 
or  that  the  rule  of  the  single  act  ought  to  be  a  rule 
adapted  to  serve  as  an  universal  rule  for  all  ra- 
tional beings.  But  if  this  maxim  is  essential  to  the 
foundation  of  a  moral  system,  then  how  poor  the 
pretense  that  the  law  of  evolution  gives  us  any 
foundation  for  ethics  at  all.  The  facts  of  evolution 
stand  there,  mere  dead  realities,  wholly  without 
value  as  moral  guides,  until  the  individual  assumes 
his  own  moral  principle,  namely,  his  ideal  determi- 
nation to  do  nothing  that  a  person  considering  the 
order  of  the  world  as  a  whole  and  desiring  universal 
happiness  would  condemn,  from  the  point  of  view  of 
the  general  tendencies  of  acts.  Grant  that  princi- 
ple, and  you  have  an  ideal  aim  for  action.  Then 
a  knowledge  of  the  course  of  evolution  will  be  use- 
ful, just  as  a  knowledge  of  astronomy  is  useful  to  a 
navigator.  But  astronomy  does  not  tell  us  why  we 
are  to  sail  on  the  water,  but  only  how  to  find  our  way. 
With  Kant's  principle  assumed,  we  already  have  at- 
tained, apart  from  any  physical  doctrine  of  evolution, 
the  essentials  of  an  ethical  doctrine  to  start  with ; 
and  we  need  no  doctrine  of  evolution  to  found  this 
ethical  doctrine,  but  need  it  only  to  tell  us  the  means. 
But  if  we  have  not  already  this  Kantian  principle, 


84  THE  RELIGIOUS   ASPECT   OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

then  it  is  hard  indeed  to  see  what  the  doctrine  of 
evolution  can  do  to  help  us  to  get  it.  Mr.  Spencer 
seems  to  forget  that  a  doctrine  of  Means  is  not  a 
doctrine  of  Ends. 

In  sum  then,  either  the  fundamental  moral  dis- 
tinctions are  clear  apart  from  the  physical  fact  of 
evolution,  or  the  physical  fact  cannot  illustrate  for 
us  the  distinctions  that  we  do  not  previously  know. 
If  there  is  a  real  moral  conflict  between  egoism  and 
altruism,  then  this  conflict  must  concern  the  aims  of 
these  two  dispositions,  not  the  accidental  outcome 
that  we  reach,  nor  the  more  or  less  variable  means 
that  we  employ  in  following  the  dispositions.  And 
any  effort  to  reconcile  the  two  tendencies  by  showing 
that  through  evolution,  or  otherwise,  it  has  become 
necessary  for  an  altruistic  aim  to  be  reached  by 
seemingly  selfish  means,  or  for  a  selfish  purpose  to 
be  gained  by  seemingly  altruistic  devices,  —  any  such 
effort  has  no  significance  for  ethics.  If  the  question 
were :  "  Shall  we  buy  mutton  or  beef  at  the  market 
to-day  ?  "  it  would  surely  be  a  strange  answer  to  the 
question,  or  "  reconciliation  "  of  the  alternatives,  if 
one  replied,  "  But  whichever  you  do  you  must  go 
over  the  same  road  to  get  to  the  market."  How 
then  are  we  helped  by  knowing  that,  in  our  society, 
altruism  and  egoism,  these  two  so  bitterly  opposed 
moral  aims,  have  very  often  to  hide  their  conflicts 
under  a  use  of  very  much  the  same  outward  show  of 
social  conformity. 

There  is  indeed  no  doubt  that  all  the  knowledge 
we  may  get  about  the  facts  of  evolution  will  help  us 
to  judge  of  the  means  by  which  we  can  realize  the 


ALTRUISM   AND  EGOISM.  85 

moral  ideals  that  we  independently  form.  But  the 
ideals  themselves  we  apply  to  the  course  of  evolution 
as  tests  of  its  worth,  or  hold  as  aims  to  be  realized 
through  knowledge  of  nature.  We  do  not  get  them 
from  studying  the  course  of  nature  as  a  mere  pro- 
cess. There  is  no  doubt  of  the  reality  and  of  the 
vast  importance  of  the  physical  fact  of  evolution. 
Its  ethical  importance,  however,  has  been,  we  hold, 
misunderstood.  Evolution  is  for  ethics  a  doctrine 
not  of  ends,  but  of  the  means  that  we  can  use.  In 
fact,  there  is  an  applied  ethic  of  evolution,  but  no 
fundamental  ethical  doctrine  based  upon  evolution. 
Those  who  investigate  evolution  are  doing  much  to 
further  the  realization  of  ethical  ideals,  but  they 
cannot  make  or  find  for  us  our  ethical  ideals.  They 
show  us  where  lies  the  path  to  an  already  desired 
goal.  For  them  to  try  to  define  the  goal  merely  by 
means  of  their  physical  discoveries,  is  a  great  mis- 
take. It  can  lead  only  to  such  labored  efforts  as  we 
have  here  been  criticising,  efforts  to  prove  some 
such  opinion  as  that  altruism  is  a  form  of  selfish- 
ness, or  that  selfishness  is  the  only  possible  altruism. 
Whether  we  are  just  in  fancying  that  these  latter 
efforts  are  really  identical  with  the  actual  efforts  of 
any  recent  evolutionists,  the  reader  must  judge  for 
himself.  Altruism  we  must,  at  all  events,  justify  in 
another  way. 

V. 

But  now  let  us  turn  from  those  who  define  unself- 
ishness as  a  useful  means  to  a  selfish  end,  and  let  us 
consider  the  effort  to  make  pure  unselfishness  a  self- 


86  THE   RELIGIOUS   ASPECT    OF   PHILOSOPHY. 

.v  evident  goal  of  conduct,  by  founding  unselfishness 
".  on  the  direct  revelation  of  the  emotion  of  Pity. 
Here,  as  before,  we  shall  meet  with  the  skeptical 
criticism  that  the  mere  physical  fact  of  the  existence 
of  certain  conditions  is  no  proof  of  the  validity  of  an 
ideal  moral  demand.  Just  as  the  physical  fact  that 
a  clever  self-seeker  must  pretend  to  be  unselfish,  and 
must  outwardly  produce  effects  that  benefit  others, 
is  no  foundation  for  a  genuinely  unselfish  ideal, 
I  just  so  the  presence  of  a  pitiful  impulse,  a  mere  fact 
*;  of  human  nature,  is  no  foundation  for  an  ideal  rule 
i  of  conduct.  The  feeling  is  capricious,  just  as  the 
social  conditions  that  render  public  spirit  and  gen- 
erosity the  best  selfish  policy  are  capricious.  As 
the  selfish  man  would  behave  with  open  selfishness 
in  case  he  were  where  unselfishness  in  outward  con- 
duct no  longer  was  worth  to  him  the  trouble,  even  so 
the  pitiful  man  would,  merely  as  pitiful,  be  cruelly 
selfish  if  cruel  selfishness,  instead  of  generous  deeds, 
could  satisfy  his  impulse.  In  fact,  he  often  is  cru- 
elly selfish ;  and  if  sympathy  were  always  unselfish, 
still,  as  a  feeling,  it  is  a  mere  accidental  fact  of  hu- 
man nature.  So  again,  the  effort  to  found  a  moral 
ideal  on  a  natural  fact  will  fail.  But  let  us  look 
closer. 

•  Schopenhauer  is  the  best  modern  representative  of 
'  the  view  that  Pity  or  sympathetic  emotion  is  the 

•  foundation  of  right  conduct.     In  pity  he  finds  the 
only  unselfish  principle  in  man,  and  he  insists  that 
pity  is  a  tendency  not  reducible  to  any  other  more 
selfish  emotion  of  our  nature.     He  finds  it  necessary 
to  refute  as  an  error  the  oft  repeated  opinion  that l 

1   Grundlage  der  Moral,  p.  211  (2d  ed  ). 


ALTRUISM   AND   EGOISM.  87 

"  pity  springs  from  a  momentary  illusion  of  imagi- 
nation, so  that  we  first  put  ourselves  in  the  sufferer's 
place,  and  now,  in  imagination,  fancy  that  we  suffer 
his  pangs  in  our  person."  This,  replies  Schopen- 
hauer, is  a  blunder.  "  It  remains  to  us  all  the  time 
clear  and  immediately  certain,  that  he  is  the  suf- 
ferer, not  we  ;  and  it  is  in  his  person,  not  in  ours, 
that  we  feel  the  pain,  and  are  troubled.  We  suffer 
with  him,  so  in  him ;  we  feel  his  pain  as  his,  and  do 
not  fancy  that  it  is  ours  ;  yes,  the  happier  our  own 
state  is,  and  the  more  the  consciousness  of  it  con- 
trasts in  consequence  with  the  situation  of  our  neigh- 
bor, so  much  the  more  sensitive  are  we  to  pity." 
And  of  this  wondrous  feeling  no  complete  psycholog- 
ical explanation  can  be  given  ;  the  true  explanation, 
thinks  Schopenhauer,  must  be  metaphysical.  In 
pity  a  man  comes  to  a  sense  of  the  real  oneness  in 
essence  of  himself  and  his  neighbor. 

This  pity  is,  therefore,  for  Schopenhauer,  the  only 
moral  motive,  first,  because  it  is  the  only  non-egois- 
tic motive,  and  secondly,  because  it  is  the  expression 
of  a  higher  insight.  The  first  character  of  pity  is 
illustrated  by  Schopenhauer  in  an  ingenious  passage, 
by  means  of  a  comparison  of  pity  and  other  motives 
as  exhibited  in  a  supposed  concrete  instance.  We 
shall  find  it  well  to  quote  the  most  of  the  passage  in 
full:  — 

"  I  will  take  at  pleasure  a  case  as  an  example  to  furnish 
for  this  investigation  an  experimentum  crucis.  To  make 
the  matter  the  harder  for  me,  I  will  take  no  case  of  char- 
ity, but  an  injustice,  and  one,  too,  of  the  most  flagrant 
sort.  Suppose  two  young  people,  Caius  and  Titus,  both 


88  THE   RELIGIOUS   ASPECT   OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

passionately  in  love,  and  each  with  a  different  maiden. 
Let  each  one  find  in  his  way  a  rival,  to  whom  external  cir- 
cumstances have  given  a  very  decided  advantage.  Both 
shall  have  made  up  their  minds  to  put  each  his  own  rival 
out  of  the  world  ;  and  both  shall  be  secure  against  any 
discovery,  or  even  suspicion.  But  when  each  for  himself 
sets  about  the  preparations  for  the  murder,  both  of  them, 
after  some  inner  conflict,  shall  give  up  the  attempt.  They 
shall  render  account  to  us,  plainly  and  truthfully,  of  why 
they  have  thus  decided.  Now  what  account  Caius  shall 
render,  the  reader  shall  decide  as  he  pleases.  Let  Caius  be 
prevented  by  religious  scruples,  by  the  will  of  God,  by  the 
future  punishment,  by  the  coming  judgment,  or  by  any- 
thing of  that  sort.  Or  let  him  [with  Kant]  say  :  '  I  re- 
flected that  the  maxim  of  my  procedure  in  this  case  would 
not  have  been  fit  to  serve  as  an  universal  rule  for  all  pos- 
sible rational  beings,  since  I  should  have  used  my  rival  as 
means  and  not  at  the  same  time  as  End  in  himself.'  Or 
let  him  say  with  Fichte :  *  Every  human  life  is  Means  or 
instrument  for  the  realization  of  the  Moral  Law;  there- 
fore I  cannot,  without  being  indifferent  to  the  moral  law, 
destroy  one  who  is  destined  to  contribute  to  that  end/ 
Or  let  him  say,  after  Wollaston  :  '  I  have  considered  that 
the  deed  would  be  the  expression  of  an  untrue  proposi- 
tion.' Or  let  him  say,  after  Hutcheson  :  ( The  moral 
sense,  whose  sensations,  like  those  of  every  other  sense, 
are  not  further  to  be  explained,  has  determined  me  to 
refrain.'  Or  let  him  say,  after  Adam  Smith  :  6 1  foresaw 
that  my  deed,  if  I  did  it,  would  arouse  no  sympathy  with 
me  in  the  spectators  of  the  act.'  Or,  after  Christian 
Wolff :  '  I  recognized  that  I  should  thereby  hinder  my 
own  growth  towards  perfection  without  helping  the  growth 
of  anybody  else.'  Or  let  him  say,  after  Spinoza :  i  Hom- 
ini  nihil  utilius  homine  ;  ergo,  hominem  interimere  nolui.9 


ALTRUISM   AND   EGOISM.  89 

In  short,  let  him  say  what  he  will.  But  Titus,  whose  ac- 
count of  himself  I  reserve  for  my  choice,  let  him  say : 
4  When  I  began  to  prepare,  and  so  for  the  moment  was 
busy  no  longer  with  my  passion,  but  with  my  rival,  then 
it  became  for  the  first  time  quite  clear  to  me  what  now 
was  really  to  be  his  fate.  But  just  here  pity  and  compas- 
sion overcame  me.  I  grieved  for  him  ;  my  heart  would 
not  be  put  down ;  I  could  not  do  it.'  I  ask  now  every 
honest  and  unprejudiced  reader,  which  of  the  two  is  the 
better  man  ?  To  which  of  the  two  would  he  rather  in- 
trust his  fate  ?  Which  of  them  was  restrained  by  the 
purer  motive  ?  Where,  therefore,  lies  the  principle  of 
moral  action  ?  " l 

What  shall  we  say  of  this  foundation  for  altru- 
ism ?  Are  pity  and  unselfishness  thus  shown  to  be, 
for  the  purposes  of  ethics,  identical  ?  Schopenhau- 
er's suggestion  seems  attractive,  but  from  the  outset 
doubtful.  Let  us  examine  it  more  carefully. 


VI. 

This  Pity  is,  at  all  events,  for  the  first  just  an  im- 
pulse, no  more ;  so  at  least,  as  we  learn,  it  appears 
in  the  unreflective  man.2  "  Nature,"  Schopenhauer 
tells  us,  has  "  planted  in  the  human  heart  that  won- 
drous disposition  through  which  the  sorrows  of  one 
are  felt  by  the  other,  and  from  which  conies  the  voice 
that,  according  to  the  emergency,  calls  to  one  4  Spare,' 
to  another,  '  Help,'  and  calls  urgently  and  with  au- 
thority. Surely  there  was  to  be  expected  from  the 
aid  thus  originating  more  for  the  prosperity  of  all 

1  Grundlage  der  Moral,  p.  231. 

2  Grundlage  der  Moral,  p.  245. 


90  THE   RELIGIOUS   ASPECT    OF   PHILOSOPHY. 

than  could  have  been  expected  from  a  strict  maxim 
of  duty,  general,  abstract,  and  deduced  from  certain 
rational  considerations  and  logical  combinations  of 
ideas.  For  from  the  latter  source  one  might  the  less 
expect  success,  because  the  mass  of  men  must  re- 
main what  they  always  have  been,  rude  men,  unable, 
by  reason  of  their  inevitable  bodily  tasks,  to  get 
time  to  cultivate  their  minds,  and  therefore,  being 
rude  men,  must  find  general  principles  and  abstract 
truths  unintelligible,  so  that  only  the  concrete  has 
meaning  for  them.  But  for  the  arousing  of  this 
pity,  which  we  have  shown  to  be  the  only  source  of 
unselfish  actions,  and  so  the  true  basis  of  morality, 
one  needs  no  abstract,  but  only  perceptive  knowl- 
edge (bedarf  es  keiner  abstrakten,  sondern  nur  der 
anschauenden  Enkenntniss),  only  the  mere  under- 
standing of  the  concrete  case,  to  which  pity  at  once 
lays  claim,  without  further  reflective  mediation." 
And,  to  make  his  view  clearer,  Schopenhauer  fur- 
ther appeals  to  passages  quoted  by  him  with  ap- 
proval from  Rousseau : l  "II  est  done  bien  certain, 
que  la  pitie  est  un  sentiment  naturel,  qui,  moderant 
dans  chaque  individu  1'amour  de  soi-mSme,  concourt 
a  la  conservation  mutuelle  de  toute  1'espece.  .  .  . 
C'est,  en  un  mot,  dans  ce  sentiment  naturel  plutdt, 
que  dans  les  argumens  subtils,  qu'ilfaut  chercher  la 
cause  de  la  repugnance  qu*  eprouverait  tout  homme 
a  mal  faire."  Pity,  then,  is  no  abstract  principle, 
but  a  tendency  to  do  so  and  so  in  a  concrete  case. 
For  the  natural  and  unlearned  man  it  is  a  mere 
sentiment,  a  feeling  with  his  fellow,  no  more. 

1  "  Discours  sur  1'origine  de  1'inegalite."     Quoted  in  the   Grund- 
lage  der  Moral,  p.  247. 


ALTRUISM   AND   EGOISM.  91 

But  then  does  this  sentiment  exhaust  for  Schopen- 
hauer the  whole  meaning  of  pity  ?  In  no  wise.  Not 
for  this  sole  reason  is  pity  the  whole  basis  of  morality, 
namely,  because  it  is  the  only  non-egoistic  impulse  in 
us ;  but  besides  this  reason,  there  is  the  second  rea- 
son used  by  Schopenhauer  to  give  special  dignity  to 
pity.  This  other  reason  is  in  fact  the  deeper  basis 
for  him  of  pity  as  the  principle  of  conduct.  Pity  is 
namely  a  revelation  in  concrete  form  of  a  great  fun- 
damental truth,  the  one  above  referred  to,  the  great 
fact  of  the  ultimate  and  metaphysical  Oneness  of  all 
sentient  beings.  Because  pity  reveals  this,  therefore 
has  this  sentiment  an  authority,  a  $epth  and  a  sig- 
nificance that  a  sentiment,  merely  as  such,  could 
never  have. 

About  this  aspect  of  the  matter,  Schopenhauer  in- 
structs us  more  than  once  in  his  writings.  A  few 
quotations  from  one  discussion  will  serve  for  present 
illustration. 

"  The  difference  between  my  own  and  another's  person 
seems  for  experience  an  absolute  difference.  The  differ- 
ence of  space  that  separates  me  from  my  neighbor,, sep- 
arates me  also  from  his  joy  and  pain.  But  on  the  other 
hand,  it  must  still  be  remarked,  that  the  knowledge  that  we 
have  of  ourselves  is  no  complete  and  clear  knowledge." 1 
..."  Whereon  is  founded  all  variety  and  all  multiplicity 
of  beings  ?  On  space  and  time  ;  through  these  alone  is  va- 
riety or  multiplicity  possible,  since  what  is  many  can  only 
be  conceived  as  coexistent  or  as  successive.  Because  the 
many  like  things  are  called  individuals,  I  therefore  call 
space  and  time,  as  making  possible  the  existence  of  a  mid- 

1  Grundlage  der  Moral,  p.  267. 


92  THE   RELIGIOUS   ASPECT    OF   PHILOSOPHY. 

titude  of  individuals,  the  principium  individuationis."  l 
.  .  .  "If  anything  is  undoubtedly  true  in  the  explanations 
that  Kant's  wonderful  insight  has  given  to  the  world,  then 
surely  it  is  the  Transcendental  ^Esthetics."  ..."  Ac- 
cording to  this  doctrine,  space  and  time  .  .  .  belong  only 
to  the  phenomena.  .  .  .  But  if  the  world  in  itself  knows 
not  space  or  time,  then  of  necessity  the  world  in  itself 
knows  nothing  of  multitude."  ..."  Hence  only  one  iden- 
tical Being  manifests  itself  in  all  the  numberless  phenom- 
ena of  this  world  of  sense.  And  conversely,  what  appears 
as  a  multitude,  in  space  or  in  time,  is  not  a  real  thing  in  it- 
self, but  only  a  phenomenon."  ..."  Consequently  that 
view  is  not  false  that  abolishes  the  distinction  between 
Self  and  Not-self ;  rather  is  the  opposed  view  the  false 
one."  ..."  But  the  former  is  the  view  that  we  have  found 
as  the  real  basis  of  the  phenomenon  of  pity,  so  that  in  fact 
pity  is  the  expression  of  it.  This  view  then  is  the  meta- 
physical basis  of  ethics,  and  consists  in  this  :  that  one  in- 
dividual directly  recognizes  in  another  his  own  very  self, 
his  own  true  essence.19  2 

These  passages  from  Schopenhauer  are,  as  one  sees, 
interesting  not  only  because  they  defend  the  emotion 
of  pity  as  the  foundation  of  morals,  but  also  because 
they  offer  an  interesting  suggestion  of  an  aspect  of 
the  matter  not  before  noticed  in  our  study.  Like 
so  many  of  Schopenhauer's  suggestions,  this  one  is 
neither  wholly  original,  nor  very  complete  in  itself. 
But  it  is  so  expressed  as  to  attract  attention  ;  it  is 
helpful  to  us  by  its  very  incompleteness.  It  is  stim- 
ulating, although  it  proves  nothing.  This  modern 
Buddhism  brings  to  our  minds  the  query  (which  goes 

1  Grundlage,  p.  267.  2  Grundlage,  p.  270. 


ALTRUISM  AND   EGOISM.  93 

beyond  the  present  scope  of  this  chapter),  whether 
the  altruistic  motives,  whatever  they  are,  might  not 
somehow  be  made  of  evident  and  general  validity  as 
ethical  principles,  if  we  could  show  that  in  the  mo- 
ment of  pity  or  in  some  other  altruistic  moment 
there  is  expressed  the  nascent  discovery  of  an  Illu- 
sion^ namely,  the  Illusion  of  Selfishness.  That  is 
what  Schopenhauer  supposed  himself  to  have  found 
out.  In  pity  he  found  an  unselfish  impulse.  But  this 
unselfish  impulse  was,  for  the  first,  just  an  impulse, 
a  sentiment,  beloved  of  Rousseau,  remote  from  the 
abstract  principles  that  the  philosophers  had  been 
seeking.  Here  was  unselfishness,  but  still  seeming 
to  need  reflective  development  and  deeper  founda- 
tion. Schopenhauer  thought  that  he  had  found  such 
a  deeper  basis  for  pity  when  he  suggested  that  it  was 
an  imperfect  metaphysical  insight.  In  effect  one 
might  sum  up  his  views  thus :  In  deeper  truth,  he 
says,  you  and  I  are  one  Being,  namely,  the  One  great 
Being,  the  Absolute  Will,  which  works  in  us  both. 
But  because  we  both  perceive  in  time  and  space, 
therefore  you  and  I  seem  to  ourselves  to  be  different 
and  perhaps  warring  individuals,  like  the  two  halves 
of  a  divided  worm.  Only  the  sentiment  of  pity  sees 
through  the  temporal  veil  of  illusion,  and  so  seeing, 
in  its  own  intuitive,  unreflective  way,  it  whispers  to 
us  that  the  pain  of  each  is  in  truth  the  other's  pain. 
And  when  we  really  feel  thus,  we  forget  the  illusion 
of  sense,  and  act  as  if  we  were  one.  So  acting  we  fol- 
low the  higher  insight,  and  when  metaphysic  comes, 
it  will  justify  us  in  our  view.  Such,  in  our  own 
words,  are  Schopenhauer's  ideas. 


94  THE   RELIGIOUS  ASPECT    OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

We  are  still  not  concerned  for  Schopenhauer's 
metaphysic,  which,  God  knows,  was  a  rotten  enough 
tub  for  a  wise  man  to  go  down  to  the  sea  in.  But 
in  his  character  as  keeper  of  beautiful  curiosities, 
Schopenhauer  shows  us  in  his  literary  museum,  that 
is  built  on  the  dry  land,  many  very  useful  thoughts  ; 
and  we  need  not  follow  him  out  onto  the  great  deep 
at  present.  But  we  note  with  interest  this  sugges- 
tion that  he  adds  to  his  theory  of  pity.  Is  that  sug- 
gestion worth  anything  ?  Is  pity  in  fact  a  detection 
of  an  illusion  ?  And  does  this  illusion  constitute  the 
basis  of  selfishness?  Perhaps  that  suggestion  will 
be  needed  in  a  future  chapter.  Meanwhile,  how- 
ever, we  have  at  present  to  do  only  with  pity  as  a 
mere  emotion.  Surely  if  pity  does  discover  for  us 
any  illusion  in  selfishness,  then  it  must  be  a  particu- 
lar form  of  pity  to  which  this  function  belongs.  For 
much  of  pity  simply  illustrates  this  illusion.  We 
cannot  then  do  better  than  first  to  distinguish  the 
selfish  from  the  altruistic  forms  of  what  we  popu- 
larly include  under  the  one  name  Pity,  or,  to  use  the 
more  general  word,  Sympathy.  We  shall  have  to  go 
over  old  and  commonplace  ground,  but  we  need  to  ; 
for  the  illusion  of  selfishness,  to  be  detected,  needs 
also  to  be  illustrated. 

VII. 

When  one  sees  his  neighbor  in  pain,  does  one  of 
necessity  come  to  know  that  pain  as  such,  to  realize 
its  true  nature  as  it  is  in  his  neighbor  ?  Or  does 
one  often  fall  into  an  illusion  about  that  pain,  regard- 


ALTRUISM  AND   EGOISM.  95 

ing  it  as  somehow  not  quite  real  ?  Schopenhauer 
would  reply :  The  heartless  man,  who  has  no  compas- 
sion, falls  into  a  sort  of  illusion  about  his  neighbor. 
He  thinks  more  or  less  clearly  that  that  pain  of  his 
neighbor's  is  a  sort  of  unreal  pain,  not  as  living  as 
would  be  his  own  pain.  But  the  pitiful  man,  the 
only  quite  unselfish  man,  —  he  perceives  the  reality 
of  his  neighbor's  suffering.  He  knows  that  that  is 
no  phantom  suffering,  but  even  such  pain  as  his  own 
would  be. 

We  want  to  test  this  idea  in  a  practical  way.  So 
we  say :  Let  us  judge  of  this  sympathy  by  its  fruits  ? 
Are  we  in  fact  certain  to  be  led  to  unselfish  acts 
if  in  all  cases  we  obey  the  dictates  of  sympathy  ? 
Schopenhauer  thinks  that  he  has  secured  altruism 
for  his  sympathetic  or  pitiful  man  by  remarking  that, 
in  true  pity,  one  feels  the  pain,  not  as  his  own,  but 
as  the  other's  pain.  To  follow  the  dictates  of  this 
sympathy  would  of  necessity  lead,  one  might  say, 
to  the  effort  unselfishly  to  relieve  the  other.  But 
then  does  not  this  depend  very  much  upon  the  way 
in  which  pity  comes  to  be  an  object  of  reflection  for 
the  man  that  feels  it  ?  Pity  is  often  of  itself  an  in- 
determinate impulse,  that  may  be  capable  of  very 
various  interpretation  by  the  subsequent  reflection 
of  the  pitiful  mind.  One  may  through  pity  come  to 
reflect  that  this  feeling  stands  for  a  real  pain  in  the 
other  man,  and  may  act  accordingly ;  or  one  may 
have  very  different  reflections.  One  may  fail  to 
realize  the  other's  pain  as  such,  and  may  be  driven 
back  upon  himself.  For  most  people  the  first  re- 
flection that  follows  upon  strong  pity  is  no  unselfish 


96  THE   RELIGIOUS   ASPECT   OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

one  at  all.  It  is  very  simply  the  precept :  "  Get  rid 
of  the  pain  that  your  neighbor  causes  you  to  feel." 
Sympathy  with  pain  may  make  you  tremble,  grow 
faint,  feel  choked,  weep ;  and  all  these  sudden  emo- 
tions are  followed  perhaps  by  long-enduring  melan- 
choly. All  this  causes  you  to  forget  the  reality  of 
the  other's  pain.  This  personal  trouble  of  yours, 
felt  in  stronger  cases  in  your  body  as  a  physical  dis- 
turbance, as  something  unnerving,  prostrating,  over- 
whelming, turns  your  reflection  upon  yourself,  and 
you  are  very  apt  to  ask :  What  am  I  to  do  to  be  free 
from  it  ?  So  to  ask  is  already  to  begin  to  forget 
your  neighbor.  The  pain  that  his  pain  caused  has 
simply  become  your  pain.  You  are,  even  through 
your  pity,  bound  fast  in  an  illusion.  For  there  are 
three  ways  of  removing  this  pain,  and  of  satisfying 
for  you  the  sympathy  that  caused  it.  One  way,  and 
often  a  very  hard  one,  puzzling  to  follow,  full  of  re- 
sponsibility and  of  blunders,  would  be  taken  if  you 
did  your  best,  perseveringly  and  calmly,  to  get  your 
neighbor  out  of  his  trouble.  That  would  doubtless 
take  a  long  time,  you  would  never  be  adequately 
thanked  for  your  trouble,  and  you  might  very  easily 
blunder  and  do  harm  instead  of  good  to  him,  thus 
causing  in  the  end  yet  more  sympathetic  pain  for 
you,  coupled  this  time  with  remorse.  The  second 
way  is  to  get  used  to  the  sight  of  pain,  so  that  you 
no  longer  feel  any  sympathetic  suffering.  The  third 
way  is  generally  the  easiest  of  all.  That  is  to  go 
away  from  the  place,  and  forget  all  about  the  sad 
business  as  soon  as  possible.  That  is  the  way  that 
most  sensitive  people  take  in  dealing  with  most  of 


ALTRUISM   AND    EGOISM.  97 

the  suffering  that  they  meet.  The  first  way  gives 
you  the  most  of  hard  work  to  do.  The  second  way, 
by  dulling  your  sensibilities,  makes  you  less  alive  to 
the  pleasures  that  are  to  be  gained  in  the  company 
of  happy  men.  The  stern  man,  who  has  seen  so 
much  suffering  as  to  be  indifferent  to  it,  may  be  less 
alive  to  the  bliss  of  sympathy  that  gentler  natures 
come  to  know,  in  refined  and  peaceful  society.  By 
far  the  most  inviting  way  is  the  third.  It  prevents 
you  from  growing  callous,  cold,  and  harsh.  It  leaves 
you  sensitive,  appreciative,  tender-hearted,  freshly 
sympathetic,  an  admirable  and  humane  being.  But 
it  also  saves  you  from  the  pangs  that  to  refined  na- 
tures must  be  the  most  atrocious,  the  pangs  of  con- 
templating a  world  of  sorrow  which  your  best  efforts 
can  but  very  imperfectly  help.  People  with  a  deli- 
cate sense  of  the  beautiful  surely  cannot  endure  to 
go  about  seeing  all  sorts  of  filthy  and  ugly  miseries, 
and  if  they  can  endure  it,  will  they  not  be  much 
happier,  as  well  as  more  refined,  more  delicate  in 
taste,  much  higher  in  the  scale  of  beautiful  cultiva- 
tion, if  they  do  not  try  to  endure  it,  but  keep  them- 
selves well  surrounded  by  happy  and  ennobling  com- 
panions ?  For  the  sight  of  pain  is  apt  to  make 
you  coarse  ;  it  might  degrade  you  even  to  the  level 
of  the  peevish  sufferer  himself.  Does  a  refined  soul 
desire  that  ?  No  one  is  a  duller,  a  less  stimulating, 
a  less  ennobling  companion,  than  the  average  man 
when  he  is  suffering  atrociously.  Pain  brings  out 
his  native  brutishness.  He  is  abject,  he  curses,  he 
behaves  perhaps  like  a  wild  beast.  Or  he  lies  mute 
and  helpless,  showing  no  interest  in  what  you  do  for 

7 


98  THE   RELIGIOUS   ASPECT    OF   PHILOSOPHY. 

him,  hating  you  possibly,  just  because  you  are  the 
nearest  creature  to  him.  His  gratitude  is  apt  to  be 
a  myth.  So  long  as  he  yet  suffers,  he  does  not  ap- 
preciate what  you  are  doing  for  him,  for  why  should 
he  thank  you  while  you  make  him  no  better  ?  And 
if  you  can  cure  him,  what  then  ?  Nobody  can  re- 
member very  clearly  a  very  sharp  pain  once  over. 
Hence  he  will  underrate  your  services.  You  can 
much  better  appreciate  your  moderate  trouble  in 
helping  him  than  he  can  afterwards  appreciate  the 
very  great  and  agonizing  trouble  from  which  you 
saved  him.  One  forgets  in  part  one's  greatest  an- 
guish, one's  most  dangerous  diseases.  The  worst 
troubles  are  not  favorable  to  clear  memory.  Above 
all,  however,  his  memory  will  be  weak  for  what  you 
did  in  his  case.  He  will  shock  you  afterwards  by 
having  failed  to  notice  that  you  took  any  serious 
trouble  in  his  behalf  at  all.  But,  if  he  was  sick  and 
you  nursed  him,  he  will  remember  very  well  how 
you  harassed  him  as  you  nursed  him.  He  will  re- 
member a  creaking  door  or  an  ill-cooked  steak,  when 
he  forgets  your  cups  of  cold  water,  your  sleepless 
nights,  your  toil  to  secure  silence  when  he  needed  it, 
your  patience  when  he  complained,  your  sacrifice  of 
all  other  present  aims  in  life  on  his  account.  All 
that  he  will  forget,  not  because  he  is  a  bad  man,  but 
because  he  is  an  ordinary  creature  whom  pain  de- 
based and  corrupted,  so  that  he  became  hardly  a  fit 
companion  for  an  elevated  and  refined  soul  like 
yours.  He  is  only  human.  If  you  were  an  average 
man  yourself,  you  would  treat  your  friends  that 
aided  you  in  your  worst  suffering  after  much  the 


ALTRUISM   AND   EGOISM.  99 

same  fashion.  It  is  well  if  the  sufferer  and  his 
helper  do  not  begin  a  quarrel  that  will  last  a  life- 
time, all  because  of  the  meddlesome  self-sacrifice  of 
the  officious  helper.  For  to  the  wretched  any  help 
is  apt  to  seem  officious,  because  no  help  is  imme- 
diately and  unconditionally  successful. 

So  then,  if  you  are-  tender-hearted,  does  tender- 
heartedness dictate  all  this  waste  of  sympathy  ? 
Plainly  not.  Tender-heartedness  need  not  say  :  My 
neighbor  must  be  relieved.  Tender-heartedness,  as 
a  personal  affection  of  yours,  says  only :  Satisfy  me. 
And  you  can  satisfy  this  affection  if  you  forget  about 
all  those  degraded  wretches  that  are  doomed  to  suf- 
fer, and  associate  with  those  blessed  ones  whose  in- 
nocent joy  shall  make  your  tender  heart  glad  of  its 
own  tenderness.  Let  us  rejoice  with  those  that  do 
rejoice,  and  those  that  weep,  let  them  take  care  of 
themselves  in  everlasting  oblivion.  Such  is  the  dic- 
tate of  tender-hearted  selfishness  ;  and  our  present 
point  is  the  not  at  all  novel  thought,  so  often  elab- 
orated in  George  Eliot's  novels,  the  thought  that, 
the  tenderer  the  heart,  the  more  exclusively  selfish 
becomes  this  dictate  of  tender-heartedness.  Very 
sensitive  people,  who  cannot  overcome  their  sensi- 
tiveness, are  perforce  selfish  in  this  world  of  pain. 
They  must  forget  that  there  is  suffering.  Their 
pity  makes  them  cruel.  They  cannot  bear  the  sight 
of  suffering ;  they  must  shut  the  door  upon  it.  If 
he  is  a  Dives,  such  a  man  must  first  of  all  insist  that 
the  police  shall  prevent  people  like  Lazarus,  covered 
with  sores,  from  lying  in  plain  sight  at  the  gate. 
Such  men  must  treat  pain  as,  in  these  days  of 


100         THE   RELIGIOUS   ASPECT   OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

plumbing,  we  treat  filth.  We  get  the  plumber  and 
the  carpenter  to  hide  it  so  well  that  even  our  civ- 
ilized nostrils  shall  not  be  offended.  That  we  call 
modern  improvement  in  house-building.  Even  so 
we  get  the  police  to  hide  suffering  from  us  ;  and, 
when  that  help  fails,  or  is  inapplicable,  we  appeal 
to  the  natural  sense  of  decency  in  the  sufferers,  and 
demand,  on  the  ground  of  common  courtesy,  that 
they  shall  not  intrude  their  miseries  upon  us.  Thus 
we  cultivate  a  tender  sympathy  for  the  most  delicate 
emotions  of  the  human  heart,  as  we  never  could  do 
if  we  let  suffering,  as  our  forefathers  used  to  let  filth, 
lie  about  in  plain  sight.  Ignore  another's  suffering, 
and  then  it  practically  becomes  non-existent.  So 
says  selfishness. 

VIII. 

If  we  ourselves  are  very  happy,  our  lack  of  will- 
ingness to  consider  suffering  may  become  greater  and 
greater  as  we  get  happier.  Nobody  is  colder  in 
shutting  out  the  thought  of  misery  than  a  joyous 
man  in  a  joyous  company.  "  If  there  be  anywhere 
any  wretched  people  (which  we  doubt)  let  them  keep 
well  away  from  this  place."  That  is  the  voice  of 
the  spirit  of  overflowing  sympathetic  joy,  as  Schiller 
so  finely  expresses  it  in  the  hymn  an  die  Freude:  — 

"  He  who,  proving,  hath  discovered, 

What  it  is  a  friend  to  own, 
O'er  whom  woman's  love  hath  hovered, 

Let  him  here  his  bliss  make  known  : 
Yea,  if  but  one  living  being, 

On  the  earth  is  his  to-day,  — 


ALTRUISM  AND   EGOISM.  101 

I  And  who  ne'er  has  known  suth,;  fipeJn£,r     '  • ' 

Let  him  weep  his  grief  away*  *  * 
"Joy,"  says  the  enthusiastic  young  "Schiller* in 
this  rhapsody,  "  Joy  was  bestowed  on  the  worm." 
"  All  beings  drink  joy  at  Mother  Nature's  breast." 
Delightful  generosity  of  the  happy  man  !  But  what 
do  the  crushed  worms  think  about  it?  "  Whoso  hath 
a  friend,"  —  but  what  of  the  poor  wretches  in  the 
slums  of  great  cities,  beaten,  starved,  imprisoned, 
cheated,  and  cheating,  starved  and  imprisoned  again, 
all  through  their  lifetimes?  How  many  souls  do 
these  poor  Ishmaelites  call  their  own  ?  But  of  whom 
shall  the  joyful  man  think,  of  whom  does  he  or  can  he 
think  ?  Of  these  ?  No,  it  is  the  tendency  of  selfish 
joy  to  build  up  its  own  pretty  world  of  fancy.  Every- 
thing in  that  world,  from  cherub  to  worm,  has  joy's 
sympathy,  but  only  in  so  far  as  it  is  also  joyous. 
Seid  umsMungen  Millionen!  dieser  Kuss  der 
ganzen  Welt !  But  in  fact  dieser  Kuss  is  intended 
only  for  the  happy  world,  which  in  the  illusion,  beau- 
tiful, but  yet  cruel,  of  the  innocently  joyous  man, 
seems  to  be  the  whole  world.  Much  good  will  such 
kisses  do  to  the  Millionen  that  groan  and  writhe ! 
Joy  ignores  them,  cannot  believe  them  real. 

Such  then  are  some  of  the  dictates  of  sympathy, 

1  Wem  der  grosse  Wurf  gelungen 

Eines  Freundes  Freund  zu  sein, 
Wer  ein  holdes  Weib  errungen 

Mische  seinen  Jubel  ein ! 
Ja,  —  wer  auch  nur  eine  Seele 

Sein  nennt  auf  dem  Erdenrund ! 
Und  wer  's  nie  gekonnt,  der  stehle, 

Weinend  sich  aus  diesem  Bund. 


102         THE   RELIGIOUS   ASPECT   OF   PHILOSOPHY. 

Which  cf ten  bear 'to  our  conduct  such  relation  as,  in 
a  saying  ^of  Emerson's,  the  desire  to  go  to  Boston 
tears  to  the  possible  'ways  of  getting  there.  "  When 
I  want  to  get  to  Boston,"  says  in  substance  Emerson, 
"  I  do  not  swim  the  Charles  River,  but  prefer  cross- 
ing the  bridge."  Emerson's  saying  was  intended  to 
illustrate  his  own  preference  for  reading  translations 
of  foreign  authors  rather  than  the  originals.  It 
does  illustrate  very  well  the  preference  that  we  all 
have  for  the  shortest  way  out  of  our  sympathetic 
troubles.  To  help  your  suffering  neighbor  is  hard 
swimming,  perhaps  amid  ice-blocks  ;  to  go  on  and 
find  elsewhere  merry  company  is  to  take  the  bridge 
direct  to  Boston.  Sympathy  leads  therefore  often 
to  the  ignoring  of  another  man's  state  as  real.  And 
this  is  the  very  Illusion  of  Selfishness  itself. 

Pity  may  then  turn  to  selfish  hatred  of  the  sight 
of  suffering.  It  is  hardly  necessary  to  dwell  at  length 
upon  the  disheartening  reverse  aspect  of  the  picture, 
namely,  on  the  fact  that,  when  pity  does  not  lead  us 
to  dread  the  suffering  of  others,  it  may  lead  us  to 
take  such  credit  for  our  very  power  to  sympathize 
with  pain,  that  we  come  to  feel  an  actual  delight  in 
the  existence  of  the  events  that  mean  suffering  to 
others.  Our  hearts  may  so  swell  with  pride  at  our 
own  importance  as  pitiful  persons,  that  we  may  even 
long  to  have  somebody  of  our  acquaintance  in  trou- 
ble, so  that  we  can  go  and  pose,  in  the  presence  of 
the  sufferers,  as  humane  commentators  on  the  occur- 
rence, as  heroic  endurers  of  sorrows  that  we  do  not 
really  share.  This  is  the  second  stage  of  selfish  pity. 
It  is  even  more  enduring  and  incurable  than  the 


ALTRUISM   AND   EGOISM.  103 

first.  The  dread  of  the  sight  of  pain  may  be  made 
to  pass  away  by  enough  of  inevitable  experience. 
But  the  selfish  love  of  the  office  of  comforter  grows 
with  the  sense  of  our  personal  importance,  and  with 
the  number  of  times  when  we  are  called  upon  to  ex- 
ercise our  powers.  There  are  people  who  are  always 
fretful  and  disconsolate  unless  they  know  of  some- 
body who  very  badly  needs  consoling.  Then  they 
are  calm  and  happy,  for  they  are  sure  that  they  are 
admirable  as  comforters,  they  feel  themselves  the 
centre  of  an  admiring  neighborhood,  they  are  plying 
their  noble  avocation  in  a  graceful  fashion.  This 
type  is  surely  no  very  uncommon  one.  Such  people 
are  apt  to  be  intolerable  companions  for  you  unless 
you  have  a  broken  leg,  or  a  fever,  or  a  great  bereave- 
ment. Then  they  find  you  interesting,  because  you 
are  wretched.  They  nurse  you  like  saints ;  they 
speak  comfortably  to  you  like  angels.  They  hate  to 
give  the  little  comfort  that  can  be  given  from  day 
to  day  to  those  who  are  enduring  the  ordinary  vex- 
ations of  healthy  and  prosaic  life.  They  rejoice  to 
find  some  one  overwhelmed  with  woe.  The  happy 
man  is  to  them  a  worthless  fellow.  High  tempera- 
ture is  needed  to  soften  their  hearts.  They  would 
be  miserable  in  Paradise,  at  the  sight  of  so  much 
tedious  contentment ;  but  they  would  leap  for  joy  if 
they  could  but  hear  of  a  lost  soul  to  whom  a  drop  of 
water  could  be  carried.  To  them  the  most  blessed 
truth  of  Scripture  is  found  in  the  passage  :  "  For 
the  poor  ye  have  always  with  you."  Yea,  blessed 
are  the  merciful,  for  they  shall  never  lack  work. 
They  shall  be  like  the  sculptor,  delighting  in  the 


104    THE  RELIGIOUS  ASPECT  OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

rough  blocks  of  marble  that  contain  his  beloved 
statues.  For  them  the  world  will  doubtless  have  al- 
ways a  plenty  of  blocks. 

These  are  not  the  vulgarly  malevolent.  Yet  they 
would  be  disconsolate  altogether  if  evil  were  to 
cease.  They  regard  misery  as  their  special  prop- 
erty ;  hence  they  would  be  very  much  disappointed 
to  hear  that  Paradise  had  come  again,  and  that  mis- 
ery had  been  abolished.  And  we  are  speaking  now, 
not  of  the  professional  enthusiasm  that  must  make 
the  physician  interested  in  the  diseases  that  he  stud- 
ies, but  of  the  pure  delight  in  pity  that  distinguishes 
certain  unprofessional  people  whose  lives  would  be 
almost  utterly  empty  of  all  joy  were  their  neighbors 
not  subject  to  serious  calamities.  Surely  it  is  not 
this  sort  of  pity  that  overcomes  the  illusion  of  self- 
ishness. Rather  does  such  pity  well  illustrate  that 
illusion. 

IX. 

Sympathy  then,  as  an  emotion,  is  not  always  altru- 
istic, but  frequently  very  selfish.  It  does  not  always 
overthrow,  but  often  strengthens,  selfishness.  And 
so  deceitful  an  emotion  cannot  be  trusted  with  the 
office  of  giving  moral  insight.  In  so  far  as  pity  ever 
does  involve  the  detection  of  an  illusion  of  selfishness, 
we  may  have  occasion  to  speak  of  it  hereafter.  For 
on  that  side,  Schopenhauer's  thought  still  looks  at- 
tractive. But  if  we  view  pity  with  reference  not  to 
insight  but  to  emotion,  if  we  ask  whether  a  given  act 
was  unselfish  because  it  was  pitiful,  then  we  can 
already  answer  that,  in  so  far  as  unselfishness  consti- 


ALTRUISM  AND   EGOISM.  105 

tutes  morality,  the  pitiful  character  of  an  act  does 
not  insure  its  unselfishness,  and  hence  not  its  morality. 
Schopenhauer's  own  typical  example,  quoted  above, 
is  indeed  interesting,  but  not  conclusive  as  to  this 
question.  "I  pitied  him,"  says  the  lover,  who  has 
refrained  from  slaying  his  rival.  "  Had  he  not  re- 
sembled my  father  as  he  slept,  I  had  done  it,"  says 
Lady  Macbeth.  Possibly  Lady  Macbeth' s  pity  was 
good  in  itself,  but  not  quite  sufficient  in  quantity. 
But  her  words  remind  us  of  what  the  lover  might  do, 
if  only  pity  stood  in  the  way  of  the  murder  that  he 
desired  to  commit.  He  might  get  somebody  else  to 
take  care  of  the  whole  business,  preparations  and  all, 
and  so  save  his  own  tender  emotions.  In  fact,  how- 
ever, Schopenhauer's  young  lover  has  something 
more  than  a  mere  emotion  of  pity  in  him. 

But  so  far  as  we  have  considered  sympathy,  we 
have  had  but  another  illustration  of  the  difficulty 
with  which  we  are  dealing.  Even  if  sympathy  were 
always  unselfish,  never  capricious,  perfectly  clear  in 
its  dictates,  there  would  remain  the  other  objection. 
Sympathy  is  a  mere  fact  of  a  man's  emotional  nature. 
To  an  unsympathetic  man,  how  shall  you  demonstrate 
the  ideals  that  you  found  upon  the  feeling  of  sympa- 
thy ?  And  so  one  returns  to  the  old  difficulty.  You 
have  an  ideal  whereby  you  desire  to  judge  the  world. 
But  this  ideal  you  found  in  its  turn  on  the  fact  that 
somebody  has  a  certain  sort  of  Emotion.  Any  one 
who  has  not  this  emotion  you  declare  to  be  an  in- 
competent judge.  And  so  your  last  foundation  for 
the  ideal  is  something  whose  worth  is  to  be  demon- 
strated solely  by  the  fact  that  it  exists. 


106         THE   RELIGIOUS  ASPECT   OF   PHILOSOPHY. 

Thus  in  this  and  in  the  last  chapter,  in  general 
and  in  particular  discussions,  we  have  found  the  one 
problem  recurring.  The  ideal  is  to  have  an  ideal 
foundation,  yet  we  seem  always  to  give  it  a  founda- 
tion in  some  reality.  And  if  we  then  look  about  us, 
we  always  find  some  skeptic  saying,  either  that  he 
does  not  feel  sure  of  the  existence  of  any  such 
reality,  or  that  he  doubts  whether  it  means  what  we 
say  that  it  means,  or,  again,  that  in  any  case  there  are 
other  people,  who  have  found  other  realities,  and 
whose  moral  principles,  founded  on  these  other  real- 
ities, are  in  deadly  opposition  to  ours.  The  idealist 
of  our  preliminary  discussion  on  the  methods  of  eth- 
ical inquiry  has  so  far  met  with  numerous  misfor- 
tunes. He  has  continually  been  enticed  over  to  a 
sort  of  realistic  position,  and  then  just  the  same 
arguments  that  he  used  against  the  realist  are  used 
against  him.  If,  however,  true  to  himself,  he  as- 
saults the  realism  of  the  modern  descendants  of 
Hobbes  with  the  argument  that  all  their  physical 
hypotheses  are  worthless  without  ideals,  then  he 
hears  the  challenge  to  show  an  ideal  that  is  not 
his  whim,  and  that  is  not  founded  on  a  physical  doc- 
trine. There  seems  no  refuge  for  him  as  yet  but  to 
turn  skeptic  himself. 


CHAPTER  V. 

ETHICAL   SKEPTICISM   AND   ETHICAL   PESSIMISM. 

Long  is  the  night  to  him  who  is  awake  ;  long  is  a  mile  to  him  who 
is  tired  ;  long  is  life  to  the  foolish  who  do  not  know  the  true  law.  — 
DHAMMAPADA. 

To  turn  skeptic  himself,  we  said,  seemed  the  only 
way  open  before  our  idealist.  If  only  he  had  placed 
his  standard  a  little  lower !  If  only  he  had  not 
insisted  on  getting  his  ideal  by  ideal  methods! 
Then  he  might  have  remained  safe  in  some  one  of 
the  positions  that  he  temporarily  assumed.  But  al- 
ways he  drove  himself  out  of  them.  Some  stupen- 
dous external  reality,  some  beautiful  mental  state, 
would  suggest  itself  to  him,  and  he  would  say :  "  Lo, 
here  is  the  ideal  that  I  seek."  But  forthwith  his 
own  doubt  would  arise,  accusing  him  of  faithlessness. 
"  What  hast  thou  found  save  that  this  or  that  hap- 
pens to  exist  ?  "  the  doubt  would  say,  and  our  ideal- 
ist would  be  constrained  to  answer,  "  Not  because  it 
exists,  but  because  I  have  freely  chosen  it  for  my 
guide,  is  it  the  Ideal."  And  then  would  come  the 
repeated  accusation  that  caprice  is  the  sole  ground 
for  the  choice  of  this  ideal.  Skepticism,  then,  total 
skepticism  as  to  the  foundation  of  ethics,  seems  to 
be  the  result  that  threatens  us.  We  must  face  this 
skepticism  and  consider  its  outcome. 


108        THE  RELIGIOUS   ASPECT   OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

I. 

It  is  in  fact  in  such  skepticism  as  this  that  one 
finds  the  real  power  and  meaning  of  most  genuine 
modern  Pessimism.  Not  so  much  in  the  hopeless- 
ness of  our  efforts  to  reach  our  ideals  once  chosen  as 
in  our  perpetual  hesitation  or  unsteadiness  in  the 
choice  of  ideals,  we  most  frequently  find  the  deepest 
ground  for  pessimistic  despair.  Choose  an  ideal, 
and  you  have  at  least  your  part  to  play  in  the  world. 
The  game  may  seem  worth  the  trouble  ;  for  far  off 
as  may  be  what  you  seek,  there  is  the  delight  and 
the  earnestness  of  free  self-surrender  to  a  great  aim. 
But  pessimism  is  almost  inevitable  if  you  have  been 
long  trying  to  find  an  ideal  to  which  you  can  devote 
yourself,  and  if  you  have  failed  in  your  quest. 
Therefore  those  advocates  of  pessimism  are  most 
formidable  who  dwell  less  upon  the  ills  of  life,  as 
bare  facts,  and  more  upon  the  aimlessness  of  life. 
Von  Hartmann,  therefore,  to  whom  pessimism  is 
more  the  supposed  result  of  a  process  of  summation, 
and  thus  is  a  belief  that  the  sum  of  pains  in  life 
overbalances  the  sum  of  pleasures,  produces  little 
effect  upon  us  by  his  balance-sheet.  But  Schopen- 
v  hauer,  who  dwelt  not  only  upon  the  balance-sheet, 
(  but  still  more  upon  the  fundamental  fact  that  life  is 
f  restless  and  aimless,  —  he  is  nearer  to  success  in  his 
pessimistic  efforts.  It  is  here  that  one  finds  also 
the  true  strength  of  Schopenhauer's  model,  the 
Buddhistic  despair  of  life.  Choose  your  aim  in  life, 
says  in  effect  Buddhism,  let  it  be  wife  or  child, 
wealth  or  fame  or  power,  and  still  your  aim  is  only 


ETHICAL   SKEPTICISM   AND   ETHICAL   PESSIMISM.      109 

one  among  many,  lost  in  the  eternal  strife,  at  war 
with  all  the  rest,  and  never  able  to  prove  its  right  to 
supremacy  in  the  world.  From  life  to  life  you  pass, 
now  a  Brahman,  now  a  king,  now  a  worm,  now  a 
tiger,  now  a  beggar,  now  in  hell,  now  among  the 
demons  of  the  air ;  your  aims  alter  everlastingly 
with  each  new  birth,  and  nowhere  do  you  find  life 
anything  but  a  succession  of  aims,  no  one  of  which 
is  intrinsically  more  significant  than  the  others. 
The  world  of  aims  is  a  world  of  strife,  and  no  life 
has  any  real  significance.  No  desire  is  of  any  es- 
sential worth.  Therefore,  seeing  all  this,  give  up 
desire.  Have  it  as  your  one  aim  to  have  no  aim.)) 
Such  is  the  outcome  of  the  insight  into  the  eternal 
warfare  of  aims.  The  Buddhist  parables  try  to 
make  plain  this  insignificance  of  life  both  by  dwell- 
ing on  the  fact  that  men  must  finally  fail  to  get  their 
aims,  and  by  insisting  that,  if  men  temporarily  suc- 
ceed, their  condition  is  no  less  insignificant  than  it  is 
when  they  fail.  The  failure  is  used  to  show  a  man 
not  so  much  the  difficulty  of  getting  his  aim  in  this 
bad  world,  as  the  worthlessness  of  his  aim.  The 
success  when  it  comes  is  embittered  for  the  success- 
ful man  by  reminding  him  that  all  desire  is  tran- 
sient, and  that  what  he  now  loves  will  come  to  seem 
hateful  to  him.  In  both  cases  the  lesson,  whether  of 
the  success  or  of  the  failure,  is,  not  that  the  order  of 
things  is  diabolical,  and  therefore  an  enemy  of  man- 
kind, but  that  the  desires  themselves  are  hopelessly  1 
confused  and  worthless.  If  Buddhism  dwelt  only* 
on  the  hopelessness  of  our  efforts  to  get  the  good 
things  that  we  want,  the  doctrine  would  result  in  a 


110         THE  RELIGIOUS  ASPECT   OF   PHILOSOPHY. 

sort  of  Promethean  defiance  of  the  physical  world, 
our  powerful  and  cruel  enemy.  But  Buddhism  in- 
sists upon  it  that  we  know  not  what  are  the  good 
things  that  we  pretend  to  want.  Our  desires  being- 
ignorant,  and  endlessly  changeable,  we  have  no  right 
to  hope  for  success.  The  moral  of  their  stories  is 
not  a  protest  against  the  physical  evils  about  us,  but 
a  general  condemnation  of  the  vain  aims  that  are 
in  us. 

The  same  aimlessness  of  life  is  the  subject  of 
lament  in  much  of  our  modern  romantic  poetry. 
Here  is,  for  the  melancholy  romantic  poet,  the  great 
evil  of  existence,  that  we  know  not  what  is  good. 
Here  is  the  great  disappointment  of  life,  that  we 
have  no  object  in  life.  Here  is  the  great  failure, 
that  we  cannot  make  up  our  minds  to  undertake 
anything.  Here  is  the  great  emptiness,  that  we 
have  nothing  to  fill.  And  thus  the  ethical  skepti- 
cism that  has  so  far  beset  our  path  in  the  present 
investigation  becomes,  when  we  dwell  upon  it  and 
fully  realize  its  meaning,  an  ethical  pessimism.  We 
shall  then  illustrate  afresh  our  problem  if  we  con- 
sider how  this  difficulty  of  the  choice  of  an  ideal 
has  affected  the  search  of  certain  among  our  modern 
romantic  poets  for  what  they  would  call  the  ideal 
emotion. 

II. 

Of  all  the  subjects  of  reflection  in  romantic  poetry, 
none  is  more  familiar  than  the  question  of  the  mean- 
ing and  worth  of  human  life  as  a  whole.  The  first 
and  natural  answer  of  the  modern  poet  to  this  ques- 


ETHICAL   SKEPTICISM  AND   ETHICAL   PESSIMISM.     Ill 

tion  is  well  known.  Human  life  means  for  him  the 
emotional  side  of  life.  The  highest  good,  when 
found,  must  be  an  emotional  good.  The  romantic 
poet,  criticising  life,  must  aim  to  make  clear  what 
kind  of  emotional  condition  is  the  most  satisfactory 
one.  In  this  view  we  have  no  mere  truism.  Many 
forms  of  Hedonism  would  oppose  the  doctrine  that 
in  the  intenser  emotions  can  be  found  the  ideal 
states  of  consciousness.  The  common  sense  of  men 
of  the  world  sees  in  the  more  moderate  pleasures  of 
polite  leisure,  in  the  attainment  of  practical  knowl- 
edge, in  a  successful  professional  or  business  career, 
the  sources  of  permanent  satisfaction.  Several 
schools  of  ancient  philosophy  regarded  tranquillity 
as  constituting  the  essence  of  a  blessed  life.  But  to 
all  this  the  spirit  of  modern  poetry  was  from  the 
outset  violently  opposed.  Tranquillity,  once  ex- 
changed for  storm  and  stress,  is  not  again  regarded 
as  the  goal.  Active  emotion,  intense  in  quality,  un- 
limited in  quantity,  is  what  the  poets  of  the  revolu- 
tion desire.  One  need  only  mention  "  Werther," 
"The  Robbers,"  "The  Revolt  of  Islam,"  "Man- 
fred," "Faust,"  to  suggest  what  is  meant  by  this 
spirit  of  the  revolutionary  poetry. 

Life,  then,  can  be  of  worth  only  in  so  far  as  it  is 
full  of  the  desirable  forms  of  poetic  emotion.  But 
is  such  fullness  of  life  possible  ?  Is  the  view  that 
makes  it  the  ideal  a  tenable  view?  Must  not  the 
consistent  following  of  this  view  lead  ultimately  to 
pessimism  ?  The  answer  to  this  problem  is  the  his- 
tory of  the  whole  romantic  movement.  Here  must 
suffice  a  sketch  of  some  of  the  principal  results  of 
the  movement. 


112         THE   RELIGIOUS   ASPECT   OF   PHILOSOPHY. 

The  stir  of  modern  life,  then,  has  awakened  sensi- 
bility, quickened  desire,  aroused  the  passion  for  free- 
dom, disturbed  old  traditions.  Above  all,  the  theo- 
logical ideals  of  life  have  been,  for  the  romantic  poet, 
disturbed,  perhaps  shattered.  His  highest  good  must 
be  sought  in  his  own  soul.  What  is  the  consequence  ? 
First,  of  course,  a  sense  of  splendid  independence,  a 
lofty  spiritual  pride.  The  joy  of  freed  emotion  is 
equaled  by  few  delights  on  earth.  The  self- worship  of 
poetic  genius  is  surpassed  by  few  forms  of  conceit. 
Shelley,  rejoicing  in  his  strength,  writing  u  The  Ne- 
cessity of  Atheism,"  and  defending,  in  all  innocence 
of  evil,  adultery  and  incest,  is  a  good  example  of  the 
expression  of  this  spirit.  Lavatar's  account  of  the 
nature  of  genius  is  another  instance :  "  As  the  appa- 
ritions of  angels  do  not  come,  but  are  present,  do  not 
go  away,  but  are  gone,  as  they  strike  the  innermost 
marrow,  influence  by  their  immortality  the  immortal 
in  men,  vanish  and  yet  still  influence,  leave  behind 
them  sweet  shuddering  and  tears  of  terror,  and  on 
the  countenance  pale  joy,  so  the  operation  of  genius. 
Describe  genius  as  you  will,  —  name  it  f  ruitf  ulness  of 
soul,  faith,  hope,  love,  —  the  unlearned,  the  unlearn- 
able,  —  the  inimitable,  the  divine,  —  that  is  genius. 
?T  is  inspiration,  revelation,  that  may  be  felt,  but  not 
willed  or  desired ;  't  is  art  above  art,  its  way  is  the 
way  of  the  lightning."  1  We  cannot  quote  a  tenth 
part  of  this  rhapsody,  wherein  the  self-admiration 
and  the  mutual  admiration  of  the  young  men  about 
Goethe,  in  the  years  just  before  and  after  1780,  re- 
ceive a  characteristic  expression. 

1  See  the  passage  at  much  greater  length  in  Koberstein's  Gesch. 
der  deutschen.  Nationalliteratur,  bd.  iv.,  p.  26,  of  the  5th  edit. 


ETHICAL   SKEPTICISM   AND   ETHICAL    PESSIMISM.     113 

This  pride  leads  directly  to  the  effort  to  build  up 
a  wholly  new  set  of  ideals.  The  patience  of  the 
statesman,  of  the  student  of  science,  of  the  business 
man,  is  unknown  to  these  forceful  young  men. 
They  must  make  a  world  of  their  own,  and  in  a  day 
too.  At  the  same  time  they  are  without  any  definite 
faith.  In  fact,  definite  faith  would  endanger  for 
them  the  freshness  of  their  emotions.  They  fear  any 
creed  but  one  self-made.  And  they  can  more  easily 
tear  down  than  build  up.  One  of  the  most- interest- 
ing of  the  young  geniuses  of  the  age  of  the  German 
romantic  development l  is  the  early  lost  Novalis 
(Friedrich  von  Hardenberg),  a  representative,  like 
Shelley  after  him,  of  the  emotional  or  romantic  po- 
etry in  its  pristine  innocence.  A  truly  noble  soul, 
joined  to  a  weak  body,  oppressed  by  many  troubles, 
unable  to  grow  to  full  manly  spiritual  stature,  he 
shows  us  the  beauty  and  imperfection  of  the  emotional 
movement  in  close  union.  He  writes  pages  of  vague 
philosophy,  which  afterwards  impressed  the  young 
Carlyle  as  an  embodiment  of  a  sense  of  the  deep 
mystery  of  life.  You  find  delight  in  wandering 
through  the  flowery  labyrinths  of  such  speculation  ; 
you  learn  much  by  the  way,  but  you  come  nowhere. 
Only  this  is  clear  :  the  young  poet  persists  that  the 
world  must  in  some  way  conform  to  the  emotional 
needs  of  man.  And  he  persists,  too,  that  a  harmo- 
nious scheme  of  life  can  be  formed  on  a  purely  ro- 
mantic plan,  and  only  on  such  a  plan.  He  actually 

1  The  age  in  question   extends  from   1770  to  1830.     No  special 
effort  is  here  made  to  follow  chronological  order.     Our  purpose  is 
to  cite  illustrations,  not  to  give  a  history. 
8 


114         THE    RELIGIOUS   ASPECT    OF   PHILOSOPHY. 

explains  no  reality  and  completes  no  scheme  of  life. 
He  hints,  at  length,  that  the  Catholic  church  is  the 
best  expression  of  the  needs  of  man.  With  this  un- 
satisfactory suggestion,  the  little  career  of  wander- 
ing ends  in  death.  But  in  what  could  it  have  ended 
had  life  continued  ? 

Perhaps  in  what  was  called  by  the  close  friend  of 
Novalis,  Friedrich  Schlegel,  the  romantic  irony. 
This  is  the  next  stage  in  the  growth,  or,  if  you  like, 
in  the  decay  of  the  romantic  spirit.  Emotion  is  our 
guide  and  our  goal.  But  what  is  emotion  ?  Some- 
thing changeable  and  by  nature  inconsistent.  Each 
I  emotion  sets  up  a  claim  to  fill  the  whole  of  life.  For 
<  each  new  one,  the  earnest  poetic  soul  feels  willing  to 
.  die.  Yet  each  is  driven  away  by  its  follower.  The 
feet  of  them  that  shall  bear  it  out  are  before  the 
door  even  while  the  triumphant  emotion  is  reigning 
over  the  heart  within.  Fullness  of  such  life  means 
fickleness.  Novalis,  upon  the  death  of  his  betrothed, 
made  a  sort  of  divinity  of  the  departed,  and  dated  a 
new  era  from  the  day  of  her  death.  His  diary  was 
for  a  while  full  of  spiritual  exercises,  suggested  by 
his  affliction.  He  resolved  to  follow  her  to  the  grave 
in  one  year.  Within  this  year  he  was  betrothed 
anew.  If  such  is  Novalis,  what  will  be  a  lesser 
spirit?  Conscious  of  this  inevitable  decay  of  each 
emotion,  Friedrich  Schlegel  suggests  that  one  should 
make  a  virtue  of  necessity,  and  declare  that  the 
higher  life  consists  in  a  sort  of  enthusiastic  fickle- 
ness. The  genius  must  wander  like  a  humming-bird 
in  the  garden  of  divine  emotions.  And  he  must  be 
conscious  and  proud  of  his  wanderings.  Activity, 


ETHICAL   SKEPTICISM   AND   ETHICAL   PESSIMISM.      115 

or  rather  agility,  is  his  highest  perfection.  The 
more  numerous  his  emotions,  the  nobler  the  man. 
The  fickler  the  man,  the  more  numerous  his  emo- 
tions. This  conscious  union  of  nobility  and  fickle- 
ness is  the  romantic  irony,  which  consists  in  receiv- 
ing each  new  enthusiasm  with  a  merry  pride.  'T  was 
not  the  first,  and  will  not  be  the  last.  We  see 
through  it,  even  while  we  submit  to  it.  We  are 
more  than  it  is,  and  will  survive  it.  Long  live  King 
Experience,  who  showers  upon  us  new  feelings  ! 

So  much  for  an  ingenious  and  thoroughly  detesta- 
ble view  of  life,  in  which  there  is  for  an  earnest  man 
no  rest.  This  irony,  what  is  it  but  the  laughter  of 
demons  over  the  miserable  weakness  of  human  char- 
acter ?  The  emotion  was  to  be  our  god.  It  turns 
out  to  be  a  wretched  fetich,  and  we  know  it  as  such. 
'Twas  mine,  'tis  his,  and  has  been  slave  to  thou- 
sands. It  is  gone,  though  we  trusted  in  it.  It  was 
our  stay,  and  it  has  flowed  away  like  water.  This 
is  not  fullness,  but  hollowness,  of  life.  And  how 
shall  the  romantic  irony  supply  the  vacancy  ?  This 
irony  is  but  the  word  of  Mephistopheles  about  the 
ruin  of  Gretchen :  Sie  ist  die  erste  nicht.  Not  the 
first  change  of  emotion  is  this  present  one ;  not  the 
first  breaking  up  of  the  fountains  of  the  great  deep 
within  us ;  but  what  misery  in  that  thought !  Then 
there  is  nothing  sure,  nothing  significant.  In  our 
own  hearts  were  we  to  find  life,  and  there  is  no  true 
life  there  ;  only  masks  with  nothing  beneath  them ; 
only  endless  and  meaningless  change. 

The  consciousness  of  this  result  is  present  in  an- 
other form  of  the  romantic  spirit.  The  consequence 


116         THE   RELIGIOUS   ASPECT    OF   PHILOSOPHY. 

is  what  Hegel,  in  the  Phanomenologie  des  Geistes, 
described  under  the  name  of  Das  Ungliickliche 
Bewusstsein,  and  what  is  more  familiarly  known  to 
us  as  the  Byronic  frame  of  mind.  The  very  strength 
of  the  previous  emotion  renders  this  consciousness 
of  the  hollowness  of  emotion  the  more  insupport- 
able :  — 

"  When  the  lamp  is  shattered 
The  light  in  the  dust  lies  dead." 

The  brighter  the  lamp,  the  deeper  the  darkness  that 
follows  its  breaking. 

The  romantic  despair  thus  described  took  many 
forms  in  the  poetry  of  the  early  part  of  the  century. 
To  describe  them  all  were  to  go  far  beyond  our  lim- 
its. A  few  forms  suggest  themselves.  If  we  are 
condemned  to  fleeting  emotions,  we  are  still  not  de- 
prived of  the  hope  that  some  day  we  may  by  chance 
find  an  abiding  emotion.  Thus,  then,  we  find  many 
poets  living  in  a  wholly  problematic  state  of  mind, 
expecting  the  god  stronger  than  they,  who,  coming, 
shall  rule  over  them.  Such  a  man  is  the  dramatist 
and  writer  of  tales,  Heinrich  von  Kleist.  "  It  can 
be,"  writes  this  poet  to  a  friend,  December,  1806, 
"  it  can  be  no  evil  spirit  that  rules  the  world,  only  a 
spirit  not  understood."  In  such  a  tone  of  restless 
search  .for  the  ideal  of  action,  Kleist  remains  through- 
out his  life.  No  poet  of  the  romantic  school  had  a 
keener  love  of  life-problems  purely  as  problems. 
Each  of  his  works  is  the  statement  of  a  question. 
In  so  far  Kleist  resembles  that  more  recent  repre- 
sentative of  the  problematic  school  of  poetry,  Ar- 
thur Hugh  Clough.  Kleist  answered  his  own  ques- 


ETHICAL   SKEPTICISM   AND  ETHICAL   PESSIMISM.      117 

tions  at  last  by  suicide.  Others  have  other  ways  of 
fleeing  misery.  Ludwig  Tieck,  after  running  through 
the  whole  round  of  romantic  questions,  rids  himself 
of  his  demons  by  turning  his  attention  to  other  lit- 
erary work,  and  lets  most  of  the  old  romantic  ideals 
alone,  or  playfully  writes  amusing  stories  about 
them.  Friedrich  Schlegel  finally  escapes  from  him- 
self by  means  of  a  scholarly  toil  and  Catholic  faith. 
Holderlin  takes  refuge  in  a  mad-house.  Shelley 
manages  to  endure  his  brief  life,  by  dint  of  childlike 
submissiveness  to  his  emotions,  joined  with  earnest 
hope  for  yet  better  things.  Schiller  had  joined  with 
Goethe  in  a  search  for  perfection  in  the  ancient 
Greek  world.  There  are  many  fashions  of  quieting 
the  restlessness  that  belonged  to  the  time,  yet  what 
one  of  them  really  answers  the  problems  of  the  ro- 
mantic spirit?  There  is  still  the  great  question: 
How  may  mankind  live  the  harmonious  emotional 
life,  when  men  are  driven  for  their  ideals  back  upon 
themselves,  when  traditional  faith  is  removed,  when 
the  age  is  full  of  wretchedness  and  of  blind  striving, 
when  the  very  strength  of  poetic  emotion  implies 
that  it  is  transient  and  changeable  ?  The  conscious 
failure  to  answer  this  question  is  more  or  less  de- 
cided pessimism. 

Could  modern  poetry  free  itself  from  that  reflective 
tendency  in  which  we  have  found  its  most  prominent 
characteristic,  the  pessimism  could  disappear  with 
the  criticism  of  life.  But  this  is  impossible.  Omit 
part  of  our  lyric  poetry,  some  of  our  comedy  and  of 
our  satire,  and  the  rest  of  our  best  nineteenth  cen- 
tury poetic  work  is  a  more  or  less  conscious  struggle 


118         THE   RELIGIOUS   ASPECT    OF   PHILOSOPHY. 

with  pessimism.  The  grounds  and  the  nature  of  this 
struggle  have  been  set  forth  in  the  foregoing.  The 
poet  once  for  all  accepts  the  emotional  criterion  of 
the  worth  of  life.  Determining  to  see  in  the  harmo- 
nious emotional  life  the  best  life,  feeling  as  the  most 
certain  of  principles  that  "  there  is  a  lower  and  a 
higher,"  the  poet  seeks  to  picture  the  perfect  exist- 
ence thus  defined.  Failure  means  for  him  pessi- 
mism ;  not  von  Hartmann's  really  quite  harmless 
"  eudamonologischer  Pessimismus"  but  the  true 
pessimism  of  the  broken  will,  that  has  tried  all  and 
failed.  The  life  that  ought  to  be,  cannot  be;  the 
life  that  is,  is  hollow  and  futile  :  such  will  be  the 
result  of  disappointed  idealism.  In  our  time,  the 
idealistic  poets  that  are  not  pessimists  have  all 
fought  more  or  less  consciously  the  same  battle  with 
pessimism.  Think  only  of  the  "  Excursion,"  or  of 
the  "  In  Memoriam,"  or  again  of  "  Faust,"  that 
epitome  of  the  thought  of  our  century. 

But  before  we  allow  ourselves  a  word  on  the  rela- 
tion of  "  Faust  "  to  our  problem,  let  us  look  a  little 
more  closely  at  Byron.  "  Faust "  is  the  crown  of 
modern  poetic  effort.  If  that  fails  as  a  solution,  all 
in  this  field  has  thus  far  been  lost.  But  in  Byron 
there  is  a  confessed,  one  may  add  a  professed,  moral 
imperfection,  whose  nature  throws  light,  not  so  much 
on  the  solution  of  the  problem  of  pessimism,  as  on 
the  problem  itself. 

The  development  of  Byron's  poetry  has  two  very 
marked  periods,  the  sentimental  and  the  critical. 
The  sentimental  Byron  of  the  years  before  1816  is 
not  of  very  great  present  interest.  The  Byron  of 


ETHICAL   SKEPTICISM   AND   ETHICAL   PESSIMISM.      119 

"  Manfred,"  "Cain,"  and  "  Don  Juan,"  represents  an 
independent  phase  of  the  romantic  movement,  whose 
faults  are  as  instructive  as  its  beauties.  This  pe- 
riod of  Byron's  poetry  is  of  course  but  very  roughly 
described  by  the  word  critical,  yet  that  word  is  at 
any  rate  suggestive.  A  sensitive  man,  and  yet  he- 
roic, strong  in  spirit,  but  without  fixed  ideals  of  life, 
a  rebel  by  nature  who  yet  finds  110  greater  soul  to 
lead  him,  no  faithful  band  to  follow  him  in  any  defi- 
nite effort  for  mankind,  Byron  is  a  modern  likeness 
of  him  that  in  the  legend  afterwards  became  St. 
Christopher.  Only  Byron  seeks  the  strongest  with- 
out finding  him,  learns  to  despise  the  devil,  and  never 
meets  the  devil's  master.  Worn  out  with  the  search, 
the  poet  flings  himself  down  in  the  woods  of  doubt 
and  dreams  "Don  Juan."  We  look  in  vain  for 
the  right  adjective  with  which  to  qualify  this  poem  : 
it  is  so  full  of  strength,  so  lavish  of  splendid  re- 
sources, and  yet  in  sum  so  disappointing.  It  has  no 
true  eniiing,  and  never  could  have  had  one.  It  is  a 
mountain  stream,  plunging  down  dreadful  chasms, 
singing  through  grand  forests,  and  losing  itself  in  a 
lifeless  gray  alkali  desert.  Here  is  romantic  self- 
criticism  pushed  to  its  farthest  consequences.  Here 
is  the  self-confession  of  an  heroic  soul  that  has  made 
too  high  demands  on  life,  and  that  has  found  in  its 
own  experience  and  in  the  world  nothing  worthy  of 
true  heroism.  We  feel  the  magnitude  of  the  blun- 
der, we  despise  (with  the  author,  as  must  be  noticed, 
not  in  opposition  to  him)  the  miserable  petty  round 
of  detestable  experiences  —  intrigues,  amours,  din- 
ners—  in  brief,  the  vulgarity  to  which  human  life 


120         THE  RELIGIOUS  ASPECT   OF   PHILOSOPHY. 

is  reduced ;  but  the  tragedy  is  everywhere  to  be 
read  between  the  lines,  not  in  what  is  said.  The 
romantic  spirit  has  sought  in  vain  for  the  satisfac- 
tory emotional  state,  and  for  the  worthy  deed  to  per- 
form, and  now  rests,  scornful  and  yet  terrified,  in 
dizzy  contemplation  of  the  confused  and  meaning- 
less maze  of  sensations  into  which  the  world  has  re- 
solved itself.  "  There  is  nothing  there  to  fear  or 
hope,"  this  spirit  seems  to  say. 

"  When  Bishop  Berkeley  said  there  was  no  matter, 
And  proved  it,  't  was  no  matter  what  he  said." 

Or  again :  — 

"  '  To  be  or  not  to  be  ? '     Ere  I  decide 
I  should  be  glad  to  know  that  which  is  being ; 

'T  is  true  we  speculate  both  far  and  wide, 
And  deem,  because  we  see,  we  are  all-seeing. 

For  my  part,  I  '11  enlist  on  neither  side, 
Until  I  see  both  sides  for  once  agreeing. 

For  me,  I  sometimes  think  that  life  is  death, 
•      Rather  than  life,  a  mere  affair  of  breath." 

In  "  Manfred  "  the  same  spirit  seeks  another,  and 
not  quite  so  successful,  a  form  of  expression.  The 
only  peace  that  can  come  to  this  world-weary  spirit, 
Manfred  expresses  at  the  sight  of  a  quiet  sunset. 
The  only  freedom  from  eternal  self-examination  is 
found  in  an  occasional  glance  at  peaceful  nature. 

"  It  will  not  last, 

But  it  is  well  to  have  known  it  though  but  once ; 
It  hath  enlarged  my  thoughts  with  a  new  sense, 
And  I  within  my  tablets  would  note  down 
That  there  is  such  a  feeling." 

The  famous  last  words  of  Manfred,  — 

"  Old  man,  't  is  not  so  difficult  to  die/'-r 


ETHICAL   SKEPTICISM   AND  ETHICAL   PESSIMISM.      121 

coming  as  they  do  after  all  Manfred's  vacillation 
upon  just  this  point,  indicate  the  final  resolution  of 
despair  to  brave  all  possible  wretchedness  from  with- 
out for  the  sake  of  feeling  within,  in  all  its  strength, 
though  but  for  a  moment,  the  fierce  defiance  of  the 
rebellious  Titan.  Hungry  for  deeds,  finding  noth- 
ing to  do,  fearing  the  possible  future  life,  and  hating 
the  present,  the  hero  at  last  resorts  to  an  untrue  but 
stirring  assertion  of  absolute  personal  independence 
of  all  the  hateful  universe  here  and  hereafter  :  — 

"  Thou  didst  not  tempt  me,  and  thou  couldst  not  tempt  me. 
I  have  not  been  thy  dupe,  nor  am  thy  prey  — 
But  was  my  own  destroyer,  and  will  be 
My  own  hereafter." 

This  is  pessimism  that  overleaps  itself.  The  out- 
come of  self -analyzing  romanticism  is  the  determina- 
tion to  build  afresh  a  world  that  shall  be  nobler  than 
this  poor  world  of  decaying  passive  emotions.  Feel- 
ing will  not  do.  Manfred  attains  something  by  ac- 
tion, even  though  he  first  acts  in  the  moment  of 
death.  Doing  work  of  some  kind  is,  then,  that  to 
which  we  are  necessarily  driven.  But  if  the  action 
of  defiance  can  make  death  tolerable,  why  might  not 
some  kind  of  activity  make  life  tolerable  ?  Is  not 
the  worthy  life  then  to  be  found,  not  in  emotion, 
but  in  work  ?  Is  not  the  ideal  state  the  ideal  activ- 
ity, not  the  ideal  feeling?  This  suggestion  had 
been  at  the  foundation  of  the  prototype  of  Manfred, 
the  Faust  of  Goethe. 

Praise  of  the  first  part  of  Goethe's  "  Faust "  is 
nowadays  superfluous.  Doubtless  the  work  is  a 


122         THE   RELIGIOUS   ASPECT   OF   PHILOSOPHY. 

torso,1  but  so  is  the  life  of  man.  Extravagant  en- 
comium of  "  Faust,"  such  as  that  wherewith  Her- 
mann Grimm  has  marred,  as  with  a  showman's  ha- 
rangue, the  conclusion  of  his  otherwise  most  instruc- 
tive "  Lectures  on  Goethe,"  seems  as  out  of  place  as 
applause  in  a  cathedral.  The  poem  is  grand  and 
profound,  because  the  life  problems  it  so  truthfully 
portrays  are  grand  and  profound ;  in  form,  if  you 
except  digressions,  it  is  sublimely  simple  and  unas- 
suming. Its  imperfections  are  as  open  to  view  as  is 
its  grandeur.  The  doctrine  of  the  poem  may  be  thus 
briefly  suggested.  Here  is  a  world  wherein  nature, 
the  expression  of  divine  intelligence,  is  perfect ; 
wherein  man,  by  the  same  divine  wisdom,  is  left  in 
darkness  and  confusion.  The  angels,  who  simply 
contemplate  nature's  perfection,  are  the  "  true  sons 
of  God."  But  they  do  nothing.  They  only  see  and 
think.  Man  is  to  act.  By  his  action  he  is  freely  to 
create  such  perfection  as  already  passively  exists  in 
nature.  That  is,  his  life  is  to  become  an  harmonious 
whole.  The  postulate  of  the  Lord  is  that  this  is 
possible.  Mephistopheles  holds  the  opposite  opinion. 
The  question  is  to  be  solved  by  the  case  of  Faust. 

Faust  is  a  man  in  whom  are  combined  all  the 
strength  and  weakness  of  the  romantic  spirit.  No 
excellence  he  deems  of  worth  so  long  as  any  ex- 
cellence is  beyond  his  grasp.  Therefore  his  de- 
spair at  the  sight  of  the  great  world  of  life.  So 
small  a  part  of  it  is  his.  He  knows  that  he  can 

1  Cf.  the  opinion  of  M.  Edm.  Scherer  as  quoted  in  Mr.  Matthew 
Arnold's  essay,  A  French  Critic  on  Goethe,  in  the  Mixed  Essays,  p. 
291. 


ETHICAL   SKEPTICISM   AND  ETHICAL   PESSIMISM.      123 

never  grow  great  enough  to  grasp  the  whole,  or  any 
finite  part  of  the  whole.  Yet  there  remains  the 
hopeless  desire  for  this  wholeness.  Nothing  but  the 
infinite  can  be  satisfying.  Hence  the  despair  of  the 
early  scenes  of  the  first  part.  Like  Byron's  Man- 
fred, Faust  seeks  death ;  but  Faust  is  kept  from  it 
by  no  fear  of  worse  things  beyond,  only  by  an  acci- 
dental reawakening  of  old  childish  emotions.  He 
thereafter  feels  that  he  has  no  business  with  life,  and 
is  a  creature  of  accident.  He  is  clearly  conscious 
only  of  a  longing  for  a  full  experience.  But  this  ex- 
perience he  conceives  as  mainly  a  passive  one.  He 
does  not  wish  as  yet  to  do  anything,  only  to  get 
everything.1  But  at  the  same  time  with  this  desire 
for  a  tempest  of  new  feelings,  Faust  has  the  con- 
sciousness that  there  never  can  be  a  satisfactory  feel- 
ing. Mephistopheles,  stating  the  case  of  the  con- 
tented man  of  the  world,  assures  him  that  the  time 
will  come  for  enjoying  good  things  in  peace.  Faust 
indignantly  replies  that  pleasure  can  never  deceive 
him,  the  tolerable  moment  never  come.  In  making 
this  very  assertion,  however,  and  in  concluding  his 
pact  with  Mephistopheles  upon  the  basis  of  this  asser- 
tion, Faust  rises  above  his  first  position,  and  assumes 
a  new  one.  The  satisfactory  pleasure  can  never  be 
given  to  him,  and  why  ?  Because  he  will  always 
remain  active.  Satisfaction  would  mean  repose,  re- 
pose would  mean  death.  Life  is  activity.  The 
meaning  of  the  pact  is  of  course  that,  for  good  or 

1  Cf.  the  lengthy  discussion  of  this  point  in  Friedrich  Vischer, 
Goethe's  Faust,  Neue  Beitraye  zur  Kritik  des  Gedichts,  especially  p. 
291  and  p.  304.  "  Er  (FaustJ  weiss  also  fur  jetzt  nur  von  der  Lust" 


124        THE   RELIGIOUS  ASPECT   OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

for  evil,  all  the  existence  of  a  man  is  work,  and  that 
no  one  is  ever  wholly  lost  so  long  as  the  power  of 
accomplishment  remains  his.  But  if  work  is  the  es- 
sence of  life,  then  satisfaction  must  be  found  not  in 
feelings  but  in  deeds.  The  world  is  good  if  we  can 
make  it  so,  not  otherwise.  The  problem  of  Faust  is 
therefore  the  discovery  of  the  perfect  kind  of  activity. 

With  this  insight  the  romantic  spirit  has  risen  be- 
yond itself.  The  essence  of  romanticism  is  the  de- 
sire for  fullness  of  personal  experience.  The  essence 
of  this  new  spirit  is  the  eagerness  to  accomplish 
something.  The  difference  is  vast.  Faust,  following 

is  new  tendency,  might  be  led  to  an  obscure  toiling 
life  of  endless  self-sacrifice.  His  pessimism  (for  in 
the  early  scenes  he  is  a  pessimist)  might  give  way 
before  unquestioning  heroic  devotion  to  some  great 
end.  Does  this  take  place  ?  We  know  too  well  the 
answer.  The  whole  poem  is  indeed  a  conflict  be- 
tween the  two  tendencies  in  Faust,  but  the  first,  the 
desire  for  manifold  passive  experiences,  is  until  the 
last  scenes  of  the  second  part  predominant.  Faust 
is  active,  but  his  activity  is  mainly  a  continual  pur- 
suit of  new  experiences.  Even  at  the  end  he  is  not 
active  as  other  men  are  active  ;  his  work  is  done  by 
magic  ;  and  the  accomplishment  for  whose  sake  he 
is  at  last  willing  to  say,  This  is  the  highest  moment, 
is  an  anticipation,  not  a  reality.  In  the  real  world 
the  satisfactory  work  is  never  found.  And  thus  the 
solution  of  the  problem  is  not  fully  given,  though 
the  poet,  while  suggesting  it,  has  done  more  than 
any  other  modern  poet.  The  revolution  had  fur- 
nished as  life-ideals  grand  emotion  and  heroic  ac- 


ETHICAL   SKEPTICISM   AND   ETHICAL   PESSIMISM.     125 

tion.  The  two  cannot  wholly  be  harmonized.  The 
highest  forms  of  activity  imply  self-sacrifice,  drudg- 
ery, routine,  cool-headed  calculation.  The  highest 
forms  of  emotion,  pursued  by  themselves,  intoxicate 
and  enervate.  It  is  the  purpose  of  Goethe  to  lead 
his  hero  through  the  various  stages  of  emotional  life, 
for  the  sake  of  making  him  prefer  in  the  end  a  mode 
of  action  to  all  forms  of  simple  emotion.  The  result 
is  to  be  a  man  above  the  deadness  of  ordinary  work- 
a-day  realism,  yet  as  devoted  to  toil  as  the  stupidest 
realist.  There  is  to  be  a  free  surrender  of  a  full 
self  to  the  service  of  some  high  end.  Nothing  is 
lacking  to  the  conquest  over  pessimism,  except  the 
clear  statement  of  that  for  which  the  converted 
Faust  is  to  work.  The  goal  of  activity  once  found, 
the  problem  will  be  solved,  and  the  devil's  wager 
lost.  But  the  dim  allegorical  suggestions  of  the  sec- 
ond part  will  not  suffice  to  give  us  the  account  of 
what  is  wanted.  Faust  is  to  work  for  human  pro-  ; 
gress,  and  progress  means  the  existence  of  a  whole  \ 
nation  of  hard-laboring,  fearless  men  who  fight  for- 
ever for  their  freedom.  To  have  been  the  father  of 
such  a  people  is  the  highest  blessedness.  Good,  in- 
deed, we  say ;  but  to  have  wrought  by  the  devil's 
aid,  through  magic  and  oppression,  is  this  the  high- 
est ?  Is  this  the  type  of  the  best  activity  ?  And  is  the 
great  problem  after  all  really  solved  ?  For  what  is 
the  ultimate  good  of  the  eternal  warfare  with  nature 
in  which  mankind  are  thus  left  ?  Faust  leaves  be- 
hind him  a  nation  of  toilers,  whose  business  it  will 
be  to  build  dikes  to  keep  the  sea  out.  A  worthy 
end  of  romantic  hopes,  truly !  That  Goethe  him- 


126         THE  RELIGIOUS   ASPECT   OF   PHILOSOPHY. 

self  is  not  wholly  content  therewith  is  proven  by  the 
epilogue  in  heaven,  which  means,  if  it  means  any- 
thing, that  the  highest  end  of  human  activity  is 
something  very  fine,  but  altogether  inexpressible,  in- 
visible, inconceivable,  indefinite,  a  thing  of  ether 
and  dreams.  One  longs  in  this  last  scene  for  the 
presence  of  Mephistopheles,  who  surely  has  as  much 
right  there  as  in  the  prologue,  and  who  would  be 
sure  to  say,  in  his  terse  and  sinewy  fashion,  just  the 
right  and  the  last  word  about  the  whole  business. 

The  incompleteness  of  "  Faust  "  is  the  incomplete- 
ness of  modern  thought.  The  poet  is  silent  about 
the  final  problem,  because  modern  thought  is  still 
toiling  away  on  the  definition  of  the  highest  human 
activity. 

Thus  we  have  found  that  our  moral  problem  is 
shared  by  others  than  the  moral  philosophers.  Al- 
most at  random  we  have  taken  a  few  suggestive 
illustrations  of  this  same  moral  problem  as  it  ap- 
pears to  the  poets.  Had  we  made  use  of  the  poets 
of  the  present  day,  we  could  have  illustrated  still 
other  aspects  of  the  question.  The  restless  dramatic 
genius  of  Browning,  for  instance,  always  giving  us 
glimpses  of  new  ideals  that  men  of  strange  fashions 
have  or  may  have,  unweariedly  warns  us  not  to  pre- 
tend to  narrow  the  possible  objects  of  life  down  to 
one,  however  sacred  we  may  think  that  one  to  be. 
Life,  thus  viewed,  seems  a  grand  everlasting  war- 
fare of  ideals,  among  which  peace  is  impossible. 
And  with  this  insight  into  the  actual  and  seemingly 
irreconcilable  warfare  of  human  aims,  ethical  doc- 
trine must  begin.  The  outlook  is  gloomy,  but  the 
problem  must  be  faced. 


ETHICAL   SKEPTICISM   AND   ETHICAL  PESSIMISM.      127 
III. 

Such  are  some  of  the  motives  that  give  genuine 
meaning  to  modern  pessimism.  This  instability  of  - 
all  ideals  is  the  greatest  danger  to  which  idealism 
can  be  subject.  And  the  problem  is  not  one  of  mere 
theory,  nor  yet  even  of  poetic  emotion  alone.  The 
problem  is  one  of  daily  life.  We  choose  some  fash- 
ion of  life  in  the  morning,  and  we  reject  it  before 
night.  Our  devotional  moments  demand  that  all 
life  shall  be  devotional ;  our  merry  moments  that  all 
life  shall  be  merry ;  our  heroic  moments  that  all  life 
shall  be  lived  in  defiance  of  some  chosen  enemy. 
But  we  are  false  to  all  these  our  ideals,  even  while 
we  pretend  to  have  them.  And  the  most  dishear- 
tening aspect  of  the  whole  matter  lies  in  the  fact 
that  we  cannot  prove  even  our  faithlessness  to  be  un- 
worthy, unless  we  can  bring  ourselves  steadfastly  to 
accept  some  ideal  by  which  our  faithlessness  itself 
can  be  judged.  And  this  would  imply  that  we  were 
no  longer  faithless. 

We  have  thus  reached  the  root  of  moral  skepti- 
cism. The  worst  that  moral  skeptics  can  say  is  that 
all  choice  of  ideals  is  an  accidental  caprice,  that 
ideals  have  no  basis  but  this  caprice,  and  that  a 
moral  code  depends  for  its  successful  propagation 
wholly  on  the  persuasive  personal  force  of  the  man 
that  happens  to  have  it  and  to  teach  it. 

For  the  first,  then,  we  provisionally  accept  this 
skeptical  view.  We  shall  regard  the  moral  ideals  in 
this  light.  We  shall  seek  no  impossible  proof  for 
any  of  them.  But  we  shall  try  to  see  whither  the 
skeptical  view  itself  leads  us. 


128         THE   RELIGIOUS   ASPECT    OF   PHILOSOPHY. 

If  we  look  now  for  a  final  and  perfectly  cold- 
blooded statement  of  this  moral  skepticism,  a  state- 
ment that  shall  let  us  see  once  for  all  its  meaning,  its 
foundation,  and  its  scope,  the  present  author  knows 
of  no  better  expression  of  it  than  the  one  that  is  con- 
tained in  the  appendix  to  Mr.  Arthur  Balfour's 
44  Defense  of  Philosophic  Doubt,"  l  under  the  title 
44  The  Idea  of  a  Philosophy  of  Ethics."  Mr.  Bal- 
four  has  shown  us  by  the  book  in  question  that  he 
has  a  very  useful  office  in  philosophic  discussion, 
and  we  can  only  thank  him  for  having  made  posi- 
tive advance  in  ethics  easier,  by  his  clear  statement 
of  the  difficulties  that  in  the  past  have  barred  the 
way. 

44  Scientific  judgments  and  ethical  judgments  deal," 
says  Mr.  Balfour,  "  with  essentially  different  sub- 
ject-matters." Scientific  propositions  state  "facts 
or  events,  real  or  hypothetical."  Ethical  proposi- 
tions do  not  "  announce  an  event,"  nor  yet  do  they 
tell  any  "  fact  of  the  external  or  internal  world." 
Ethical  writers  too  often  consider  the  "  psychology 
of  the  individual  holding  the  moral  law."  But  this 
is  no  matter  for  ethics,  but  only  for  psychological 
science.  In  fact,  "  if  a  proposition  announcing  ob- 
ligation require  proof  at  all,  one  term  of  that  proof 
must  always  be  a  proposition  announcing  obligation, 
which  itself  requires  no  proof."  44  There  is  no  arti- 
fice by  which  an  ethical  proposition  can  be  evolved 
from  a  scientific  or  metaphysical  proposition,  or  any 
combination  of  such."  44  The  origin  of  an  ultimate 
ethical  belief  can  never  supply  a  reason  for  believing 

1  London,  MacMillan  &  Company,  1879. 


ETHICAL   SKEPTICISM   AND   ETHICAL   PESSIMISM.      129 

it,  since  the  origin  of  this  belief,  as  of  any  other 
mental  phenomenon,  is  a  matter  to  be  dealt  with  by 
science  ;  and  my  thesis  is  that  (negatively  speaking) 
scientific  truth  alone  cannot  serve  as  a  foundation 
for  a  moral  system  ;  or  (to  put  it  positively),  if  we 
have  a  moral  system  at  all,  there  must  be  contained 
in  it,  explicitly  or  implicitly,  at  least  one  ethical 
proposition,  of  which  no  proof  can  be  given  or  re- 
quired." 

The  reader  may  ask :  Is  all  this  the  loftiest  ideal- 
ism, or  is  it  simply  philosophic  skepticism  about  the 
basis  of  ethics  ?  We  may  leave  the  reader  to  ex- 
amine for  himself  Mr.  Balfour's  very  ingenious  dis- 
cussion, but  one  or  two  very  obvious  and  simple 
consequences  may  be  quoted  from  the  rest  of  the  es- 
say, and  these  will  serve  well  enough  to  show  here 
the  drift  of  the  discussion. 

"  An  ethical  proposition  is  one  that  prescribes  an 
action  with  reference  to  an  end."  Every  such  prop- 
osition "  belongs  to  a  system."  "  The  fundamental 
proposition  of  every  such  system  states  an  end,  which 
the  person  who  receives  that  system  regards  as  final 
—  as  chosen  for  itself  alone."  "  When  two  such 
systems  conflict,  their  rival  claims  can  only  be  de- 
cided by  a  judgment  or  proposition  not  contained  in 
either  of  them,  which  shall  assert  which  of  these  re- 
spective fundamental  '  ends '  shall  have  precedence." 
"  If  revenge  against  a  particular  individual  is  for 
me  an  end-in-itself,  a  proposition  which  prescribes 
shooting  him  from  behind  a  hedge  may  be  one  of  the 
dependent  propositions  belonging  to  that  particular 
system."  "  Though  under  the  name  ethical  are  in- 


130         THE    RELIGIOUS   ASPECT   OF   PHILOSOPHY. 

eluded  not  only  moral,  but  also  non-moral  and  im- 
moral systems,  the  distinctions  regarded  from  the 
outside  between  these  subdivisions  are  not  essential, 
and  have  no  philosophic  import."  Such  then  is  the 
skeptical  outcome  of  this  very  idealistic  position  from 
which  we  ourselves  started.  Thus  viewed,  the  moral 
world  seems  essentially  chaotic.  Each  end,  if  chosen, 
has  its  own  way  of  marshaling  acts  as  good  and  bad. 
But  one  end  cannot  establish  itself  theoretically 
over  against  another.  The  warfare  among  them  is 
practical,  but  is  not  rationally  to  be  judged  or  ended. 
Each  says,  "  In  me  is  the  truth  about  right  and 
wrong.  I  am  the  Way."  But  for  one  another  they 
have,  not  arguments,  but  anathemas.  They  give  no 
proof,  only  assertion  and  condemnation.  It  is  the 
contemplation  of  this  chaos  that  has  suggested  to  us 
that  plausible  and  yet  dreadful  pessimism  of  which 
modern  thought  has  had  so  much  to  say,  and  of 
which  this  chapter  has  tried  to  give  some  notion. 


CHAPTER  VL      . 

THE  MORAL   INSIGHT. 

Love  is  like  understanding,  that  grows  bright, 
Gazing  on  many  truths. 

SHELLEY,  Epipsyckidion. 

WE  have  needed  to  dwell  on  our  ethical  skepti- 
cism, to  experience  the  real  strength  of  its  doubts, 
in  order  that  we  should  be  able  to  get  new  and  bet- 
ter methods  of  construction  for  our  own  doctrine. 
Deep  as  is  the  truth  that  lies  at  the  basis  of  many 
ethical  doctrines  now  either  doubted  or  abandoned, 
one  thing  always  seems  defective  about  their  fashion 
of  building.  This  one  defect  has  made  us  question 
their  worth  as  theories.  And  our  theoretical  doubt, 
as  we  dwelt  upon  it,  has  become  practical.  We 
have  seen  how  this  ethical  skepticism  leads  to  the 
gloomiest  pessimism.  Both  the  skepticism  and  the 
pessimism  we  must  meet  fairly  and  fearlessly.  And 
we  must  ask  them  how  even  they  themselves  are 
possible. 

I. 

Our  skeptical  criticism  of  ethical  theories  has 
been  so  far  either  internal  or  external.  We  have 
criticised  each  doctrine  in  itself,  questioning  either 
its  consistency  or  its  inner  completeness ;  or  else  we 


132         THE   RELIGIOUS   ASPECT   OF   PHILOSOPHY. 

have  criticised  it  with  reference  to  other  doctrines. 
In  the  first  case  our  criticism  led  to  no  general 
skepticism,  and  had  importance  only  in  the  special 
case.  But  the  other  kind  of  criticism  was  of  more 
importance,  and  took  another  turn.  We  said  to 
the  doctrine  :  "  Perfect  as  your  system  may  be  in 
itself,  your  assumption  of  your  highest  end  always 
finds  over  against  itself  an  equally  stubborn  assump- 
tion of  an  exactly  opposing  end.  And  you  have  110 
proof  to  offer  for  your  rejection  of  that  end.  You 
simply  insist  upon  calling  it  a  diabolical  end ;  you 
hurl  at  it  your  anathema.  Now  we,  who  have 
wanted  proof,  not  mere  enthusiasm,  we,  who  stand 
critically  before  your  doctrine,  and  view  it  from 
without,  and  desire  to  know  why  we  are  to  accept 
it,  we  feel  a  skeptical  indifference  about  your  end, 
as  soon  as  we  compare  it  with  the  opposing  end, 
and  as  soon  as  comparing,  we  find  the  difference  be- 
tween them  to  be  one  that  rests,  not  on  demonstra- 
ble truth,  but  on  a  mere  kind  of  caprice.  Practi- 
cally we  may  agree  with  you  in  choosing,  as  men 
of  action,  your  aim.  Our  personal  caprice  may 
agree  with  yours.  But  theoretically  we  cannot  jus- 
tify this  aim.  We  find,  in  all  that  you  say,  no  ob- 
jective moral  truth,  but  only  somebody's  capricious 
resolution.  And  even  if  we  chance  to  accept  your 
resolution,  who  knows  when  we  shall  change  our 
minds,  and  begin  acting  in  some  new  way,  so  that 
what  we  now  call  good  shall  be  called  evil?  In 
brief,  if  there  is  to  be  possible  anything  more  than 
moral  preaching,  if  there  is  to  be  anything  worthy 
of  the  name  of  demonstrated  moral  doctrine,  then 


THE   MORAL  INSIGHT.  133 

all  your  discussion  must  lead  to  something  not  de- 
pendent on  the  bare  choice  of  individual  moral 
agents.  But  in  truth  what  you  give  us  is  just  the 
fact  of  your  choice.  And  hence  it  is  that  we  are 
skeptics." 

What  does  this  our  skepticism  mean?  Unreflec- 
tive,  self-satisfied  skepticism  always  means  mental 
death ;  but  in  self -critical  skepticism,  observant  of 
itself  as  of  everything  else,  moves  the  very  life-blood 
of  philosophy.  And  of  this  the  whole  of  the  present 
book  will  try  to  be  an  illustration.  Just  here,  there- 
fore, we  want  to  be  as  watchful  of  our  skepticism  as 
we  were  of  the  systems  whose  theoretical  Weakness 
led  us  hither.  What  is  the  sense  of  this  theoretical 
skepticism  of  our  present  attitude  ?  On  our  reply 
all  else  turns.  And  our  reply  is  :  This  skepticism 
expresses  an  indifference  that  we  feel  when  we  con- 
template two  opposing  aims  in  such  a  way  as  mo- 
mentarily to  share  them  both.  For  the  moment  we 
realize  equally  these  warring  aims.  They  are  ours. 
The  conflict  is  in  us.  The  two  wills  here  represented 
are  our  will.  And  for  this  reason,  and  for  this  only, 
can  we  feel  the  skeptical  indecision.  Had  we  the 
will  to  choose  the  one  end  alone,  we  should  unhesi- 
tatingly choose  it,  and  should  not  see  enough  of  the 
opposing  will  to  be  skeptics.  Had  we  only  the  will 
that  chooses  the  opposing  end,  we  should  feel  equally 
indifferent  to  the  first.  Had  we  neither  will  at  all 
in  mind,  did  we  realize  neither  one  of  the  opposing 
ends,  we  should  be  feeling  no  hesitation  between 
them.  Our  doubt  arises  from  the  fact  that  momen- 
tarily and  provisionally  we  are  in  the  attitude  of  as- 


134         THE   RELIGIOUS   ASPECT    OF   PHILOSOPHY. 

suming  both.  Our  indifference  is  not  the  indiffer- 
ence of  ignorance,  but  of  knowledge ;  not  of  failure 
to  understand  either  end,  but  of  readiness  to  realize 
both  ends.  Hence  it  follows  that  moral  skepticism 
is  itself  the  result  of  an  act,  namely,  of  the  act  by 
which  we  seek  to  realize  in  ourselves  opposing  aims 
at  the  same  time.  This  observation  is  of  the  great- 
est importance  to  tis,  and  we  must  dwell  upon  it.  It 
shows  us  that  above  all  our  skepticism  is  the  su- 
preme End  that  makes  the  skepticism  itself  possible. 

The  ethical  aims  themselves  are  all  of  them  the 
expression  of  somebody's  will.  Their  conflict  is  the 
conflict  6"f  wills.  Doubt  about  them  depends  upon 
the  realization  of  their  existence  and  of  their  oppo- 
sition. Therefore  this  doubt  depends  for  its  very 
existence  on  the  conditions  of  this  realization.  We 
have  tried  to  state  what  the  conditions  are.  To 
realize  opposing  ends  so  completely  that  one  feels  a 
genuine  doubt  which  of  them  to  accept,  implies,  we 
say,  the  simultaneous  provisional  acceptance  of  both. 
And  this  may  be  shown  in  a  more  popular  psycholog- 
ical way,  as  well  as  in  a  more  general  philosophical 
way.  We  take  the  psychological  way  first. 

How  can  I  know  that  there  is  anywhere  a  will,  W, 
that  chooses  for  itself  some  end,  E  ?  Really  to  know 
this  implies  something  more  than  mere  outer  obser- 
vation of  the  facts.  One  must  repeat  in  one's  own 
mind  more  or  less  rapidly  or  imperfectly  this  will, 
W,  that  one  conceives  to  exist  in  somebody  else. 
And  this  need  of  repetition  is  a  well-known  psycho- 
logical truth,  very  easily  illustrated  by  all  sorts  of 
commonplace  facts.  Let  us  refer  to  some  of  these. 


THE   MORAL   INSIGHT.  135 

To  think  of  a  bodily  act  is  to  perform  the  act,  or 
at  least  mentally  to  initiate  the  performance  of  the 
act.  According  to  Professor  Bain's  now  generally 
accepted  principle,  the  memory  or  the  conception  of 
an  act  is  physiologically  connected  with  the  fainter 
excitation  of  just  the  same  nerve-tracts  as  would  be 
more  intensely  excited  in  the  real  performance  of 
the  act.  Therefore  it  is  true  that  to  think  of  yawn- 
ing is  to  initiate  a  yawn,  to  think  of  walking  is  to 
initiate  steps  ;  and,  in  case  of  any  excitable  person, 
or  in  case  of  any  momentary  predisposition  to  per- 
form the  act,  the  conception  may  immediately  be- 
come the  act,  because  the  nascent  excitation  involved 
in  the  conception  of  the  act  may  at  once  pass  over 
into  the  completer  excitation,  and  the  ideal  deed 
may  become  a  visible  fact.  Thus  the  excited  man, 
if  not  checked  by  company,  may  at  once  talk  aloud 
to  himself,  his  thoughts  becoming  words.  If  very 
much  excited,  he  may  mutter  to  himself  even  in  the 
presence  of  company.  He  is  much  more  apt  to  do 
this  if  he  thinks  not  only  of  the  words  themselves, 
but  of  the  act  of  speaking  them,  namely,  if  he  im- 
agines himself  talking  to  somebody,  and  emphatic- 
ally bringing  his  thoughts  home  to  that  other.  In 
a  weak  state  of  body,  this  tendency  to  repeat  an  act 
whenever  one  conceives  it  may  become  quite  dis- 
tressing. To  think  of  vomiting  may  mean  to  vomit. 
Or  again,  to  think  of  laughter  or  of  tears  may  in 
such  a  case  make  one  laugh  or  cry.  Hence  the  weak 
man  may  dislike  to  begin  laughing,  because  he 
knows  that,  other  exciting  causes  apart,  the  mere 
memory  that  he  has  laughed  may  keep  him  laugh- 


136         THE   RELIGIOUS    ASPECT    OF   PHILOSOPHY. 

ing  afresh  long  after  the  sense  of  the  ridiculous  has 
passed  away,  so  that  to  begin  laughing  may  mean 
total  exhaustion  before  he  can  stop. 

Imitation  rests  at  least  in  part  upon  this  tendency. 
An  act  is  performed,  we  witness  it,  we  see  or  know 
how  it  is  done,  we  conceive  the  effort  that  would 
lead  to  the  performance  of  it,  and  forthwith  this  con- 
ception becomes  the  performance.  We  imitate  the 
gesture  of  the  actor  or  of  the  story-teller  before  us, 
and  we  feel  an  inner  imitation  of  many  acts,  even 
though  we  suppress  the  outward  signs.  In  general, 
for  us  to  realize  an  act  means  that  we  shall  do  it, 
either  in  outward  fact,  or  through  a  nascent  perform- 
ance that  is  not  outwardly  visible.  Much  of  the 
recently  so-called  "mind-reading,"  more  accurately 
named  by  some  psychologists  "  muscle  -  reading," 
rests  upon  this  foundation.  For  the  conception  of 
acts  that  are  not  outwardly  performed  is  often  indi- 
cated by  slight  motions  or  tensions  of  arm  or  of  fin- 
gers, or  of  the  whole  body,  and  the  muscle-reader, 
getting  some  close  contact  with  his  subject,  amuses  a 
company  by  interpreting  these  unseen,  but  readily  felt 
signs  of  the  thoughts  of  his  subject.  Very  deeply  do 
such  facts  enter  into  the  structure  of  our  mental  life. 
Mr.  Galton,  investigating  word-associations,  found  in 
many  cases  that  the  idea  immediately  aroused  by  a 
word  was  a  sort  of  dramatic  reproduction  of  the  act 
expressed  by  the  word.  This  dramatic  reproduction 
consisted,  at  least  in  part,  in  the  feeling  of  effort  in 
those  muscles  that  would  be  concerned  in  performing 
the  act  itself.  If  the  momentary  association  first 
aroused  by  the  sudden  and  unexpected  sight  of  the 


THE   MORAL  INSIGHT.  137 

word  involves  this  dramatic  imitation  of  the  act 
named,  how  much  more  would  the  thought  involve 
the  dramatic  repetition  of  the  act,  if  one  were  to  dwell 
upon  the  nature  of  this  act,  and  were  fully  to  realize 
its  nature  in  his  own  mind.  So  much  then  for  psy- 
chological illustration  of  the  view  that  we  are  here 
advancing.  If  two  opposing  fashions  of  action  are 
present  to  our  minds,  and  if  mentally  we  are  trying 
to  realize  them  both,  then  mentally  we  are  seeking 
to  reproduce  them  both.  Our  skeptical  hesitation 
between  them  expresses  our  effort  to  attain  mentally 
both  these  ends  at  once.  For  what  we  have  said 
about  bodily  acts  will  apply  equally  well  to  what  we 
usually  call  mental  acts,  and  even  to  general  resolu- 
tions, all  of  which  have  a  physical  side,  and  are  apt 
to  be  symbolized  by  some  bodily  gesture  that  we 
mentally  or  outwardly  repeat  when  we  think  of  the 
act  or  of  the  resolution  in  question. 

But  all  this  is  not  a  bare  accident  of  the  psycholog- 
ical structure  of  our  minds ;  it  is  a  philosophical  ne- 
cessity. What  represents  a  Will  but  a  Will?  Who 
would  know  what  it  is  to  have  an  end  unless  he  act- 
ually had  ends  himself  ?  Who  can  realize  a  given 
aim  save  by  somehow  repeating  it  in  himself  ?  And 
so  it  is  rationally  and  universally  necessary  that  one 
shall  realize  the  end  of  a  moral  system  by  reproduc- 
ing in  himself  the  will  that  accepts  this  end.  But, 
on  the  other  hand,  in  so  far  forth  as  he  reproduces 
this  will  alone,  he  cannot  refrain  from  accepting  the 
end.  In  so  far  forth  as  he  reproduces  this  will,  it  is 
his  will.  And  the  end  is  his  end.  Therefore  our 
skepticism  itself  was  a  hesitation,  resulting  from  the 


138         THE   RELIGIOUS   ASPECT   OF   PHILOSOPHY. 

realization  of  several  opposing  ends,  and  from  a  si- 
multaneous reproduction  of  the  wills  that  aimed  at 
them.  Therefore,  as  we  see,  absolute  ethical  skepti- 
cism would  not  really  be  total  absence  of  moral  aim, 
but  would  rather  be  the  neutrality  that  would  result 
from  a  provisional  acceptance  of  all  the  conflicting 
aims  in  the  world  of  action.  Absolute  ethical  skepti- 
cism, if  it  were  actually  possible  without  self-destruc- 
tion, would  still  presuppose  an  end,  namely,  the  effort 
to  harmonize  in  one  moment  all  the  conflicting  aims 
in  the  world  of  life.  It  would  not  be  what  it  had 
supposed  itself  to  be.  Absolute  skepticism  would  thus 
be  founded  on  absolute  benevolence.  Its  own  aim 
would  be  harmony  and  unity  of  conduct.  But  just 
for  that  reason  is  absolute  skepticism  self -destructive. 
Possibly  this  result  may  be  somewhat  unexpected. 
But  did  not  the  very  pessimism  of  our  last  chapter 
illustrate  it  ?  Why  this  pessimism  ?  This  despair 
of  life,  what  was  it  but  the  sense  of  the  hopelessness 
of  our  task  ?  What  made  the  task  seem  hopeless  ? 
And  what  was  the  task  ?  The  task  was  the  forma- 
tion of  an  harmonious  ideal  of  life.  This  task 
^seemed  hopelessTHbecause  weT  Telt  that  the  actual 
ideals  of  life  among  men  are  in  deadly  conflict.  Our 
pessimism  was  after  all  not  what  it  seemed  to  us  to 
be.  It  was  not  the  bare  renunciation  of  all  aims ; 
it  was  the  effort  to  satisfy  them  all,  embittered  by 
the  sense  that  they  were  in  seemingly  hopeless  con- 
flict. Even  our  pessimism  had  its  ideal.  Without 
its  ideal  it  would  have  experienced  no  despair.  The 
conflict  of  aims  would  have  meant  no  evil.  The  pes- 
simistic despair  was  the  natural  outcome  of  our  skep- 


THE  MORAL  INSIGHT.  139 

ticism,  solely  because  our  skepticism  was  itself  a  real- 
ization of  the  aims  with  which  men  live,  and  of  the 
warfare  of  these  aims. 

From  the  world  of  dead  facts,  we  had  said,  you 
can  get  no  ethical  doctrine.  Physical  truth  never 
gives  moral  doctrine.  Therefore  the  world  of  facts 
seemed  to  stand  on  one  side,  and  the  world  of  moral 
aims  seemed  to  stand  on  the  other,  no  logical  connec- 
tion being  discoverable  between  them.  This  was  our 
theoretical  objection  to  the  ethical  doctrines  that  we 
examined.  Separate  as  they  were  from  the  world 
of  facts,  they  seemed  to  dwell  alone,  ungrounded  and 
conflicting  acts  of  caprice.  Yet  for  them  to  pass 
over  to  the  world  of  facts  was  to  lose  their  ethical 
character.  But  now  we  seek  to  overcome  our  diffi- 
culty by  considering,  not  the  world  of  physical  facts 
themselves,  but  the  world  of  ends.  And  this  world 
we  consider,  not  now  in  detail,  but  as  a  whole. 
What  highest  end  is  suggested,  we  ask,  to  him  who 
realizes  for  himself  this  whole  world  of  ends  ?  The 
very  end,  we  answer,  that,  as  first  dimly  seen,  forced 
upon  us  our  skeptical  pessimism.  Whoso  realizes  an 
end,  his,  for  the  time  being,  is  that  end.  And  since 
it  is  his  end,  he  mentally  wills  to  realize  it  in  ideal 
perfection.  But  whoso  realizes  the  various  conflicting 
aims  in  the  world,  his  are  all  these  aims  at  the  mo- 
ment of  insight,  when,  so  far  as  in  him  lies,  he  real- 
izes them,  and  mentally  desires  their  success.  In  pro- 
portion as  his  realization  is  or  can  be  catholic  and 
genuine,  his  will  becomes,  for  the  time,  these  con- 
flicting wills.  In  him  is  how  the  warfare.  He  feels 
in  his  own  person  the  bitterness  of  the  universal 


140         THE   RELIGIOUS   ASPECT    OF   PHILOSOPHY. 

strife.  And  therefore  it  is  that,  in  the  first  moment 
of  his  new  insight,  the  pessimism  comes  to  him. 
"  This  warfare  cannot  be  ended,"  he  despairingly 
says.  But  has  he  thus  uttered  the  final  word  ?  For 
he  has  not  yet  added  the  reflection  that  we  are  here 
insisting  upon.  Let  him  say :  "  Then  I  too  have  an 
end,  far-off  and  unattainable  though  it  seems,  and 
so  my  will  is  not  aimless.  I  desire  to  realize  these 
aims  all  at  once.  Therefore  I  desire  their  harmony. 
This  is  the  one  good  that  comes  up  before  my  fancy 
as  above  all  the  various  conflicting  individual  goods 
of  the  various  separate  aims.  This  Higher  Good 
would  be  attained  in  a  world  where  the  conflict 
ceased.  That  would  be  the  Ideal  World,  where  all 
possible  aims  were  pursued  in  absolute  harmony." 

Barren  at  first  sight  this  reflection  may  appear. 
It  may  have  been  unexpected,  but  we  shall  certainly 
be  disposed  at  first  to  call  it  fruitless.  For  here  are 
the  aims,  and  they  do  conflict.  In  the  actual  world 
there  is  ceaseless  warfare.  Only  the  wager  of  bat- 
tle can  decide  among  the  opposing  ethical  faiths. 
But  now,  if  some  idealist  comes  who  says  that  his 
insight  gives  him  the  higher  ideal  of  Harmony,  then 
one  may  reply  that  his  ideal  is,  in  its  confessed  na- 
ture, a  mere  fantasy  of  his  benevolent  imagination. 
Such  harmony  never  can  be  realized,  unless  indeed 
some  day,  by  the  aid  of  bigger  battalions,  some  one 
of  the  ideals  overcomes  all  the  rest.  Yet  is  our 
idealist  so  lightly  to  be  answered  ?  Can  he  not  at 
once  reply:  "My  Ideal  is  thus  defined,  and  fantastic 
though  it  be,  far-off  though  it  seems,  it  is  still  an 
ideal  towards  which  I  can  direct  my  efforts.  For 


THE   MORAL  INSIGHT.  141 

behold,  made  practical,  brought  down  from  its  lone- 
some height,  my  Ideal  very  simply  means  the  Will 
to  direct  my  acts  towards  the  attainment  of  univer- 
sal Harmony.  It  requires  me  to  act  with  this  my  in- 
sight always  before  me.  It  requires  me  to  consider 
all  the  conflicting  aims  that  will  be  affected  by  each 
one  of  my  acts,  and  to  dispose  my  act  with  reference 
to  them  all.  It  sets  up  this  new  moral  principle  be- 
fore me,  a  principle  perfectly  catholic,  and  above  all 
that  skepticism  which  we  have  felt  with  regard  to 
the  special  moral  aims.  This  Principle  is:  So  act 
as  thou  wouldst  will  to  act  if  all  the  consequences  of 
thy  act  for  all  the  aims  that  are  anywhere  to  be  af- 
fected by  this  act,  could  be  realized  by  thee  now  and 
in  this  one  indivisible  moment.  Or  more  briefly  put : 
Act  always  in  the  light  of  the  completest  insight 
into  all  the  aims  that  thy  act  is  to  affect-  This 
rule  is  no  capricious  one,  chosen  for  some  individual 
reason,  but  an  universal  maxim,  since  its  choice  de- 
pends on  the  general  realization  of  all  the  conflicting 
aims  of  the  world  of  life.  And  thus  we  have  after 
all  found,  in  the  very  heart  of  our  skepticism  itself, 
a  moral  doctrine.  In  the  midst  of  the  warfare  of  in- 
dividual wills,  we  have  caught  sight  of  an  Universal 
Will. 

II. 

"  But  no,"  some  one  will  say :  "  All  this  is  still 
mere  caprice.  Has  it  not  in  fact  fallen  already  a 
prey  to  the  same  skepticism  that  pursued  other  moral 
aims  ?  For  first,  you  have  tried  to  found  it  on  a  phys- 
ical fact,  namely,  on  the  fact  that  only  by  a  given 


142         THE   RELIGIOUS   ASPECT   OF   PHILOSOPHY. 

effort  of  will  one  thinking  being  can  realize  the  will 
of  another.  But  does  this  tell  me  that  I  ought  thus 
to  realize  the  conflicting  wills  that  are  in  the  world  ? 
And  if  I  do  not,  what  significance  has  this  physical 
fact  for  me  ?  But,  on  the  other  hand,  physical  facts 
aside,  is  not  your  doctrine  just  your  capricious  deter- 
mination to  respect  the  conflicting  aims  that  exist  in 
the  world  ?  " 

This  objection,  if  made,  would  be  founded  on  a 
misunderstanding  of  what  we  have  discovered.  We 
have  discovered  something  that  has  a  value  for  us 
quite  independently  of  its  importance  as  a  mere  phys- 
ical fact.  We  set  out  to  find  a  distinction  between 
right  ^nd  wrong.  Our  difficulty  always  was  that, 
since  this  distinction  involves  the  acceptance  of  a 
highest  aim  as  the  standard  of  judgment,  and  since 
there  are  numerous  aims  possible,  we  always  were 
confused  by  the  fact  that  among  these  manifold  aims 
there  was  found  no  ground  of  choice.  For  to  show 
any  reason  why  we  have  chosen  in  a  given  way  be- 
tween two  of  these  aims,  is  to  have  a  third  aim  that 
includes  one  and  excludes  the  other.  And  the  choice 
of  this  third  aim  seemed  again  just  as  accidental  as 
the  first  choice  would  have  been  without  this  third 
aim  to  justify  it.  Thus  our  original  thought  of  an 
aim,  as  the  foundation  of  ^an  ethical  doctrine,  had 
been  shattered  before  our  eyes  into  a  spray  of  sepa- 
rate possible  or  actual  aims,  and  we  saw  no  way  of 
collecting  this  spray  again  into  unity.  If  that  was 
the  reason  for  our  skepticism,  then  of  course  any- 
thing more  that  we  may  say  about  ethics  must  pre- 
suppose a  hearer  who  can  feel  such  skepticism,  at 


THE   MORAL   INSIGHT.  143 

least  provisionally.  The  physical  fact  that  he  can 
understand  the  nature  of  our  doubt  is  indeed  presup- 
posed ere  we  can  go  further,  but  that  is  no  objection 
to  our  progress.  The  physical  fact  that  we  have  an 
intelligent  hearer  must  always  be  presupposed  by 
us.  If  one  cannot  feel  the  doubt,  then  he  cannot 
undertake  any  ethical  inquiry.  We  only  say  to 
him :  "  If  you  doubt  about  the  acceptance  of  a  moral 
aim,  this  that  we  have  pointed  out  to  you  is  the  real 
reason  for  your  doubt.  If  now  you  understand  your 
doubt,  then  you  are  actually  in  the  state  that  we  have 
described  above.  Your  doubt  has  in  fact  a  general 
character.  It  means  a  provisional  moral  skepticism, 
founded  on  an  insight  into  the  conflict  of  aims. 
This  insight  means  skepticism  because,  and  only  be- 
cause, you  are  at  the  moment  of  insight  yourself  pos- 
sessed of  the  conflicting  aims,  yourself  at  war  with 
yourself,  and  therefore  undecided.  This  spray  of 
aims  into  which  your  first  pure  idea  of  a  moral  aim 
as  such  has  been  scattered,  this  confused  and  blind- 
ing cloud  of  purposes,  represents  for  you  your  own 
moral  position.  Divided  in  yourself,  disunited,  con- 
fused, you  float  cloud-like  and  inactive,  seeking  unity 
of  aim  and  finding  none.  But  if  you  reflect  on  all 
this,  you  see  that  in  truth  you  occupy  the  position 
that  we  have  above  described.  You  really  have 
still  a  highest  aim.  You  seek  unity.  You  desire  the 
warfare  to  cease.  You  have  an  ideal.  All  this  is, 
to  be  sure,  a  physical  fact,  dependent  on  your  na- 
ture as  voluntary  being ;  but  it  is  not  valuable  just 
for  that  reason  alone,  but  for  the  reason  that,  in  dis- 
covering this  fact,  you  have  discovered  what  you 


.445       THE  RELIGIOUS  ASPECT   OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

«^^*^ 

were  seeking  for.  You  have  found  that  you  are  in 
possession  of  an  ideal.  You  cannot  get  away  from 
that  ideal  save  by  repeating  the  very  process  that 
has  brought  you  to  it.  Your  moral  insight  is  at- 
tained, and  the  foundation  of  your  doctrine  is  no 
longer  a  particular  aim  that  is  accepted  by  a  mere 
caprice  of  one  individual,  but  it  is  the  necessary  aim 
that  arises  in  the  mind  of  any  one  who  actually  real- 
izes the  warfare  of  the  particular  aims.  It  is  the 
ideal  of  ideals.  It  is  the  absolute  ideal  that  arises 
for  you  out  of  the  consideration  of  the  separate 
ideals.  Each  of  them  was  relative  to  the  mood  of 
the  man  who  happened  to  choose  it ;  this  Ideal  is 
relative  only  to  the  insight  that  comprehends  the 
whole  moral  world.  Unable  as  we  men  are  'fully  to 
realize  just  the  actual  nature  of  every  single  aim  in 
the  world  of  life,  still  we  are  able  fully  to  realize  cer- 
tain conflicting  aims  ;  and,  realizing  this  conflict,  we 
can  form  for  ourselves  the  notion  of  that  absolute 
realization  that  means,  as  we  have  seen,  first  the 
skeptical  despair  of  our  last  chapter,  and  then,  by  a 
deeper  reflection,  the  ideal  that  we  have  just  set 
forth  above.  Thus  we  no  longer  are  capriciously  de- 
ciding upon  the  worth  of  physical  facts  as  such. 
We  are  passing  a  necessary  judgment  upon  ideals  as 
ideals. 

And  we  have  tried  to  show  that  this  our  resulting 
ideal  is  not  a  barren  one.  At  first  sight  it  seems  so. 
At  first  sight  one  says  :  "  This  harmony  is  a  self- 
contradictory  dream."  But  no,  not  self-contradictory 
is  the  dream ;  for,  if  we  cannot  perfectly  realize  this 
new  ideal,  if  absolute  harmony  is  unattainable,  one 


THE  MORAL  INSIGHT.  145 

can  still  walk  in  the  light  of  the  ideal.  One  can  say  : 
"  I  will  act  as  if  all  these  conflicting  aims  were  mine. 
I  will  respect  them  all.  I  will  act  in  the  light  that 
has  brought  me  my  moral  insight.  And  to  that  end 
I  will  act  at  each  moment  as  one  would  act  who 
saw  himself  about  to  suffer  in  his  own  person  and 
at  one  time  all  the  consequences  of  his  act  for  all 
the  aims  that  are  to  be  affected  by  what  he  does." 
But  now  the  ideal  becomes  practical,  now  it  ceases^ 
to  be  barren.  It  is  no  longer  the  mere  wish  that 
was  at  the  heart  of  our  skepticism,  a  wish  gloomy,  in- 
active, terrified  at  the  warfare  that  is  in  the  world. 
It  is  a  cool  determination.  It  says  :  "  This  disease 
of  conflicting  aims  cannot  now  be  cured,  but  it  shall 
be  dealt  with.  These  aims  are  as  my  own.  I  will 
deal  with  them  as  such.  I  will  work  for  their  har- 
mony." If  one  doubts  this  ideal,  then  he  doubts 
the  very  foundation  of  ethical  doubt  itself.  But  this 
is  not  all  that  our  absolute  ideal  accomplishes.  Not 
merely  for  the  moment  of  insight  does  this  ideal  give 
an  aim ;  but  it  extends  itself  to  the  other  moments 
of  life.  It  says  :  "  The  highest  good  would  be  realiz- 
able only  in  case  not  merely  the  aim  of  this  moment 
of  insight  itself,  but  the  aims  of  all  the  conflicting 
wills  in  the  world,  were  brought  into  conformity  to 
this  insight.  The  highest  good  would  be  attainable 
if  all  the  conflicting  wills  realized  fully  one  another. 
For  then,  not  abandoning  each  its  own  aim,  each 
would  have  added  thereto,  through  insight,  the  aims 
of  the  others.  And  all  the  world  of  individuals 
would  act  as  one  Being,  having  a  single  Universal 
Will.  Harmony  would  in  fact  be  attained."  There- 
10 


146         THE   RELIGIOUS   ASPECT   OF   PHILOSOPHY. 

fore  our  ideal  has  another  precept  to  give  us.  It 
says :  u  Act  in  such  wise  as  to  extend  this  moral  in- 
sight to  others."  Here  is  a  definite  practical  aim, 
and  it  justifies  us  in  saying  to  all  the  conflicting 
wills:  "You  should  respect  one  another."  For  so  in 
fact  they  all  would  do  if  they  had  the  moral  insight. 
And  to  have  it,  as  we  now  see,  is  the  prerequisite 
to  the  attainment  of  the  highest  good,  namely,  this 
ideal  Harmony  that  we  seek  at  the  moment  of  moral 
insight. 

III. 

• 

We  fear  that  such  general  discussion  of  what  we 
have  called  the  moral  insight  may  seem,  at  first  sight, 
too  abstract  to  be  real.  We  hasten  to  a  more  con- 
crete study  of  this  insight.  Leaving  those  more  ab- 
stract aims  that  have  been  used  as  the  foundation  of 
moral  systems,  let  us  study  our  moral  insight  as  it 
applies  to  the  special  aims  that  come  into  conflict 
when  a  man  is  dealing  with  his  neighbor.  Let  us 
see  how  just  the  considerations  that  we  have  applied 
to  the  conflict  of  ethical  aims  in  general  apply  di- 
rectly to  the  conflict  between  selfishness  and  unself- 
ishness, which  we  so  long  and  so  vainly  considered 
in  the  last  chapter.  This  warfare  of  selfishness  and 
unselfishness  is  indeed  not  the  deepest  of  moral 
problems,  and  to  solve  the  problem  here  involved  is 
not,  as  some  have  supposed,  to  define  forthwith  the 
Highest  Good.  Yet  we  shall  do  well  to  fix  our  minds 
for  the  time  on  this  special  problem. 

Why  is  selfishness  easier  to  me  than  unselfishness  ? 
Because  it  is  easier  for  me  to  realize  my  own  future, 


THE   MORAL   INSIGHT.  147 

and  my  own  desire  about  it,  than  to  realize  the  desires 
of  my  neighbor.  My  will  is  the  datum;  his  the  dimly- 
conceived,  remote  fact.  Hence  it  seems  to  me  obvious 
that  his  will  must  be  to  me  less  significant  than  my 
own.  Therefore  he  and  I  are  often  in  deadly  war- 
fare, just  because  I  realize  his  will  not  in  its  inner 
nature,  but  as  a  foreign  power,  and  because  he  deals 
even  so  with  me.  We  stand  over  against  each 
other  like  two  moral  systems,  condemning  and  fight- 
ing each  the  other.  Now,  however,  there  often  ap- 
pear disinterested  moralists,  who  try  to  patch  up  our 
differences.  We  have  seen  how  and  why  they  have 
so  often  failed.  They  tell  me  that  my  neighbor  and 
I  shall  give  each  other  much  more  selfish  delight  if 
we  stop  fighting  and  begin  cooperating.  But  that 
wise  advice  in  no  way  touches  the  root  of  the  diffi- 
culty between  us.  If  we  did  cooperate  for  this  rea- 
son, we  should  still  be  two  foreign  powers,  virtually 
discordant.  And  whenever  it  happened  that  either 
of  us  could  do  better  by  oppressing  or  by  crushing 
the  other  than  by  continuing  to  cooperate  with  him, 
he  not  only  would  do  so,  but,  so  far  as  we  have  seen, 
must  do  so.  Another  moralist  hopes  that  if  we 
keep  on  cooperating  long  enough,  we  may  evolve 
into  purely  unselfish  beings  some  day.  The  hope  is 
a  pious  one,  but  gives  us  no  sufficient  reason  why  we 
ought  to  cooperate  unselfishly  now,  when  in  fact  we 
are  selfish.  Yet  another  moralist  asks  us  to  reflect 
on  the  nature  of  our  emotions  of  pity  and  sympathy 
for  each  other.  We  reply  that  these  feelings  are  in- 
determinate in  character,  and  may  lead  us  to  do  any- 
thing or  nothing  for  each  other.  So  all  these  mor- 


V 


148  THE   RELIGIOUS   ASPECT    OF    PHILOSOPHY. 

alists  leave  my  neighbor  and  me  just  where  we  were. 
If  it  is  to  our  personal  advantage  to  fight,  we  shall 
do  so  ;  otherwise  we  may  by  chance  remain  for  a 
while  in  practical  harmony ;  but,  throughout,  our 
moral  aims  will  remain  what  they  were,  selfish  and 
conflicting. 

Forsaking  these  unsatisfactory  attempts  to  found 
a  moral  doctrine  concerning  one's  duty  to  one's 
neighbor,  let  us  try  to  do  what  Schopenhauer  so 
haltingly  suggested,  namely,  to  see  what  moral  in- 
sight as  moral  insight,  and  not  as  pity  or  as  far- 
sighted  egoism,  tells  us  about  the  moral  relations  of 
selfishness  and  unselfishness.  If  a  man  not  merely 
pities  but  knows  his  neighbor's  will,  what  moral 
ideal  does  he  get  ?  We  affirm  that  insight  into  the 
reality  of  the  neighbor's  will,  insight  that  considers 
his  will  as  it  is  in  itself,  and  that  accordingly  repeats 
it  in  us,  gives  us  a  position  above  the  struggle  of 
self  and  neighbor,  and  lets  us  see  the  higher  ideal  of 
Harmony,  whose  precept  is :  Act  as  a  being  would  act 
who  included  thy  will  and  thy  neighbor's  will  in  the 
unity  of  one  life,  and  who  had  therefore  to  suffer 
the  consequences  for  the  aims  of  both  that  will  fol- 
io 10  from  the  act  of  either.  This  insight  is  not  the 
mere  emotion  of  pity  nor  yet  sympathy,  but  some- 
thing different  from  these,  namely,  something  that 
involves  the  realization,  and  therefore  the  reproduc- 
tion in  us,  of  the  opposing  will  of  the  neighbor.  This 
insight  therefore  deprives  each  will  in  its  separate- 
ness  of  its  absolute  significance,  and  commands  that 
we  should  act  with  an  equal  reference  to  both.  It; 
says  not  merely,  "Love  thy  neighbor  as  thyself, "! 


THE  MORAL  INSIGHT.  149 

\Jbut,  "  In  so  far  as  in  thee  lies,  act  as  if  thou  wert 
t  once  thy  neighbor  and  thyself"    "  Treat  these  two 
Ityes  as  one  life." 

We  must  try  to  show  how  this  insight  leads  to  this 
result.  We  must  try  so  to  bring  home  the  insight 
to  the  reader  that  he  shall  in  his  person  accomplish 
the  act  of  which  we  speak,  and  so  come  to  accept 
the  ideal  upon  which  we  are  insisting.  It  is  in  him- 
self that  he  is  to  experience  this  ideal,  or  else  he 
will  not  be  able  or  willing  to  accept  it.  We  can 
only  suggest  the  way.  And  so  we  shall  try  forthwith 
to  suggest  what  is  the  nature  of  that  common  imper- 
fect realization  of  our  neighbor's  life  which  does  not 
lead  to  the  moral  insight,  and  then  to  dwell  upon 
this  insight  itself. 

IV. 

The  common  sense,  imperfect  recognition  of  our 
neighbor  implies  rather  realization  of  the  external 
aspect  of  his  being,  as  that  part  of  him  which  affects 
us,  than  realization  of  his  inner  and  peculiar  world 
of  personal  experience.  Let  us  show  this  by  example. 
First,  take  my  realization  of  the  people  whom  I  com- 
monly meet  but  do  not  personally  very  well  know, 
e.  g.  the  conductor  on  the  railway  train  when  I 
travel.  He  is  for  me  just  the  being  who  takes  my 
ticket,  the  official  to  whom  I  can  appeal  for  certain 
advice  or  help  if  I  need  it.  That  this  conductor  has 
an  inner  life,  like  mine,  this  I  am  apt  never  to  realize 
at  all.  He  has  to  excite  my  pity  or  some  other  spe- 
cial human  interest  in  me  ere  I  shall  even  begin  to 
try  to  think  of  him  as  really  like  me.  On  the  whole, 


150         THE   RELIGIOUS  ASPECT   OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

he  is  for  me  realized  as  an  automaton.  But  still  fre- 
quently I  do  realize  him  in  another  way,  but  how  ? 
I  note  very  likely  that  he  is  courteous  or  surly,  and 
I  like  or  dislike  him  accordingly.  Now  courtesy  and 
discourtesy  are  qualities  that  belong  not  to  automata 
at  all.  Hence  I  must  somehow  recognize  him  in  this 
case  as  conscious.  But  what  aspect  of  his  conscious- 
ness do  I  consider  ?  Not  the  inner  aspect  of  it  as 
such,  but  still  the  outer  aspect  of  his  conscious  life, 
as  a  power  affecting  me  ;  that  is  what  I  consider.  He 
treats  me  so  and  so,  and  he  does  this  deliberately ; 
therefore  I  judge  him.  But  what  I  realize  is  his  de- 
liberate act,  as  something  important  to  me.  It  sel- 
dom occurs  to  me  to  realize  fully  how  he  feels  ;  but 
I  can  much  more  easily  come  to  note  how  he  is  dis- 
posed. The  disposition  is  his  state  viewed  as  a  power 
affecting  me. 

Now  let  one  look  over  the  range  of  his  bare  ac- 
quaintanceship, let  him  leave  out  his  friends,  and  the 
people  in  whom  he  takes  a  special  personal  interest ; 
let  him  regard  for  the  first  the  rest  of  his  world  of 
fellow-men  :  his  butcher,  his  grocer,  the  policeman 
that  patrols  his  street,  the  newsboy,  the  servant  in 
his  kitchen,  his  business  rivals  whom  he  occasionally 
talks  to,  the  men  whose  political  speeches  he  has 
heard  or  read,  and  for  whom  he  has  voted,  with  some 
notion  of  their  personal  characters,  —  and  then  all 
the  rest  of  the  outside  world,  the  Turks  or  the  In- 
dians, the  men  of  historic  fame,  Napoleon,  Cicero, 
CaBsar,  the  imaginary  people  in  fictions  that  have 
excited  little  of  his  stronger  emotional  interest :  how 
does  he  conceive  of  all  these  people  ?  Are  they  not 


THE   MORAL   INSIGHT.  151 

one  and  all  to  him  ideal  or  real  ways  of  behavior 
towards  himself  or  other  people,  outwardly  effective 
beings,  rather  than  realized  masses  of  genuine  inner 
life,  of  sentiment,  of  love,  or  of  felt  desire  ?  Does  he 
not  naturally  think  of  each  of  them  rather  as  a  way 
of  outward  action  than  as  a  way  of  inner  volition  ? 
His  butcher,  his  newsboy,  his  servant,  —  are  they  not 
for  him  industrious  or  lazy,  honest  or  deceitful,  polite 
or  uncivil,  useful  or  useless  people,  rather  than  self- 
conscious  people  ?  Is  any  one  of  these  alive  for  him 
in  the  full  sense,  —  sentient,  emotional,  and  other- 
wise like  himself ;  as  perhaps  his  own  son,  or  his 
own  mother  or  wife  seems  to  him  to  be  ?  Is  it  not 
rather  the  kind  of  behavior  of  these  beings  towards 
him  which  he  realizes  ?  Is  it  not  rather  in  general 
their  being  for  him,  not  for  themselves,  that  he  con- 
siders in  all  his  ordinary  life,  even  when  he  calls 
them  conscious  ?  And  this  being  for  him  is  what  he 
calls  their  dispositions.  They  are  all  good  fellows 
or  bad  fellows,  good-humored  or  surly,  hateful  or  ad- 
mirable. They  may  appear  even  sublime  or  ideal 
beings,  as  a  CaBsar  might  to  a  student  of  history. 
Yet  their  inner  life  need  not  therefore  be  realized. 
They  remain  powers,  ways  of  acting,  dispositions, 
wonderful  examples  of  energy.  They  are  still  seen 
from  without.  Not  their  inner,  volitional  nature  is 
realized,  but  their  manner  of  outward  activity ;  not 
what  they  are  for  themselves,  but  what  they  are  for 
others. 

Such  then  is  our  natural  realization  of  our  fellows 
even  when  we  call  them  conscious.  The  imperfect 
realization  in  question  extends  even  to  the  case  of 


152         THE   RELIGIOUS   ASPECT    OF   PHILOSOPHY. 

closer  affection.  Lear  realizes  in  his  daughters,  or 
thinks  that  he  realizes,  only  the  dispositions  that  they 
express.  Real  effort  to  enter  into  the  inner  life  of 
their  emotions  is  foreign  to  his  simple  and  imperious 
mind.  Even  when  I  delight  in  another's  love,  I  am 
still  apt  to  realize  rather  the  disposition  than  the 
inner  and  more  personal  emotional  life  that  is  the 
cause  of  this  way  of  behavior.  The  act  is  what  I 
want,1  the  voice,  the  look,  the  gift,  or  the  other  as- 
surance of  an  energy  in  harmony  with  my  will.  The 
ordinary  emotion  of  gratitude  is  another  very  good 
illustration  of  the  imperfect  realization  of  our  neigh- 
bors that  accompanies  even  the  plainest  verbal  rec- 
ognition of  their  conscious  existence.  As  I  write 
these  words,  my  heart  is  just  now  going  out  in  ad- 
miration and  respect,  not  to  say  affection,  to  a  man 
whom  I  but  imperfectly  know.  I  feel  a  desire  to 
do  him  a  favor,  if  it  were  possible.  Why?  Do  I 
reflect  on  his  true  nature  and  needs  as  a  being  like 
myself  ?  Do  I  feel  our  common  weakness,  our  com- 
mon longings  ?  Have  I  dispelled  the  illusion  of  self- 
ishness that  separates  us  ?  No,  —  I  grieve  and  am 
ashamed  to  confess  it,  —  this  being  is  to  me  almost 
as  wholly  external  as  my  plumber,  not  much  better 
realized  than  my  walking-stick.  I  am  dwelling  not 
on  his  own  inner  life  at  all.  In  my  mind's  eye  I 
see  just  his  outer  form.  Yet  he  has  written  me  a 
graceful  and  pleasing  letter,  expressing  his  interest 
in  some  of  my  plans,  and  his  desire  to  help  me.  I 
am  selfishly  delighted  to  find  such  help.  I  have  an 

1  "  I  M  give  all  my  income  from  dreamland 
For  a  touch  of  her  hand  on  my  cheek." 


THE   MORAL   INSIGHT.  153 

instinctive  feeling  that  it  demands  compensation.  I 
feel  an  animal  delight  in  being  in  friendly  company. 
My  gratitude  is  here  no  moral  emotion  at  all. 

The  emotion  of  sympathy  does  indeed  often  tend 
to  make  me  realize  the  other  and  more  completely 
internal  aspeqt  of  my  neighbor's  reality  ;  but  sym- 
pathy does  this  in  the  halting  and  uncertain  way  de- 
scribed in  a  previous  chapter.  And  at  all  events, 
whatever  sympathy  leads  to,  it  is  not  by  itself  the 
insight.  And  so,  to  sum  up  our  present  way  of 
studying  the  illusions  of  selfishness,  we  find  by  these 
examples  that  by  nature  our  neighbor's  conscious 
life  is  realized  for  us  rather  as  an  active  agency  that 
affects  our  fortunes,  than  as  an  inner  experience,  or 
as  it  is  in  itself,  namely,  as  a  Will ;  and  hence  it  is 
that  we  are  disposed  to  treat  it  with  coldness,  rather 
than  to  respect  its  true  nature.  Resistance,  con- 
quest, employment  of  this  agency,  seem  to  us  axi- 
omatic aims  of  prudence  ;  unselfish  respect  for  its 
inner  accompanying  experiences  seems  to  us  a  hard 
if  not  a  meaningless  task.  Such  is  the  nature  and 
ground  of  the  illusion  of  selfishness. 

If  now  our  activity  of  realization  were  confined  to 
the  range  of  common-sense  emotions,  there  would  be 
no  escape  from  all  this.  It  is  our  critical  reflection 
that  appears  on  the  scene,  saying :  "  O  common 
sense,  what  thou  hast  realized  cannot  be  all.  We 
must  resolve  to  recognize  more,  else  will  our  reso- 
lutions never  lose  their  inconsistency  and  darkness. 
Be  honest,  O  common  sense.  Is  not  thy  neighbor 
after  all  just  a  dead  fact  of  nature,  an  automaton 
with  certain  peculiar  energies  ?  "  A.nd  common 


154         THE   RELIGIOUS  ASPECT   OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

sense  answers  :  "  No,  for  is  he  not  most  assuredly  a 
conscious  agent,  whose  action  I  realize  ?  "  "  Dost 
thou  then  know  that  he  wills,  and  not  realize  what 
this  will  means  for  him,  namely,  that  he  experiences 
it  ?  "  "  No,"  answers  common  sense,  "  if  he  wills  as 
I  do,  he  must  experience  as  I  do."  "  Eealize  it 
then,  and  see  what  thou  then  wilt  do  with  him." 
And  common  sense  must,  we  affirm,  so  realizing, 
simply  reply,  "  As  he  is  real,  he  is  as  much  an  ob- 
ject for  my  effort  as  I  myself  am,  in  case  I  can  af- 
fect him.  Ours  is  one  life."  This  common  sense 
must  see,  if  it  fully  realizes  the  neighbor.  And  if 
it  realizes  his  activity,  as  it  always  in  some  fashion 
does,  then  it  must  come  to  realize  his  experience, 
and  so  to  realize  him  fully,  so  soon  as  it  undertakes 
to  complete  the  incomplete  act  by  which  it  has  be- 
gun to  realize  his  will.  This  completion  may  be 
hastened  by  pity,  or  may  be  hindered  by  the  weak- 
ness that  pity  often  involves ;  but  when  it  comes,  it 
must  be  an  act  of  clear  insight,  made  possible  by 
the  rational  nature  of  our  mental  life.  Whatever 
in  our  thought  is  done  in  part,  we  are  ready  either 
to  abandon  wholly,  or  to  finish  altogether,  so  soon  as 
we  realize  that  we  have  been  doing  it  in  part.  Our 
resolution  to  recognize  an  existence  cannot  remain 
confused  or  self-contradictory  when  we  come  to  re- 
alize where  the  confusion  and  self-contradiction  lie. 
And  as  we  simply  cannot  give  up  recognizing  our 
neighbor,  we  must  of  necessity  resolve,  when  we  see 
this  inconsistency  of  our  natural  realization,  to  real- 
ize him  wholly. 

Such  is  our  reflective  account  of  the  process  that,  in 


THE  MORAL   INSIGHT.  155 

some  form,  must  come  to  every  one  under  the  proper 
conditions.  In  this  process  we  see  the  beginning  of 
the  real  knowledge  of  duty  to  others.  The  process 
is  one  that  any  child  can  and  does,  under  proper 
guidance,  occasionally  accomplish.  It  is  the  process 
by  which  we  all  are  accustomed  to  try  to  teach  humane 
behavior  in  concrete  cases.  We  try  to  get  people  to 
realize  what  they  are  doing  when  they  injure  others. 
But  to  distinguish  this  process  from  the  mere  tender 
emotion  of  sympathy,  with  all  its  illusions,  is  what 
moralists  have  not  carefully  enough  done.  Our  ex- 
position has  tried  to  take  this  universally  recog- 
nized process,  to  distinguish  it  from  sympathy  as 
such,  and  to  set  it  up  before  the  gates  of  ethical  doc- 
trine as  the  great  producer  of  insight. 

But  when  we  say  that  to  this  insight  common 
sense  must  come,  under  the  given  conditions,  we  do 
not  mean  to  say :  "So  the  man,  once  having  attained 
insight,  must  act  thenceforth."  The  realization  of 
one's  neighbor,  in  the  full  sense  of  the  word  reali- 
zation, is  indeed  the  resolution  to  treat  him  as  if  he 
were  real,  that  is,  to  treat  him  unselfishly.  But  this 
resolution  expresses  and  belongs  to  the  moment  of 
insight.  Passion  may  cloud  the  insight  in  the  very 
next  moment.  It  always  does  cloud  the  insight  after 
no  very  long  time.  It  is  as  impossible  for  us  to 
avoid  the  illusion  of  selfishness  in  our  daily  lives,  as 
to  escape  seeing  through  the  illusion  at  the  moment 
of  insight.  We  see  the  reality  of  our  neighbor,  that 
is,  we  determine  to  treat  him  as  we  do  ourselves. 
But  then  we  go  back  to  daily  action,  and  we  feel  the 
heat  of  hereditary  passions,  and  we  straightway  for- 


156         THE   RELIGIOUS   ASPECT    OF   PHILOSOPHY. 

get  what  we  liave  seen.  Our  neighbor  becomes  ob- 
scured. He  is  once  more  a  foreign  power.  He  is 
unreal.  We  are  again  deluded  and  selfish.  This 
conflict  goes  on  and  will  go  on  as  long  as  we  live 
after  the  manner  of  men.  Moments  of  insight,  with 
their  accompanying  resolutions  ;  long  stretches  of 
delusion  and  selfishness  :  That  is  our  life. 


V. 

To  bring  home  this  view  in  yet  another  way  to  the 
reader,  we  ask  him  to  consider  very  carefully  just 
what  experience  he  has  when  he  tries  to  realize  his 
neighbor  in  the  full  sense  that  we  have  insisted  upon. 
Not  pity  as  such  is  what  we  desire  him  to  feel.  For 
whether  or  no  pity  happens  to  work  in  him  as  self- 
ishly and  blindly  as  we  have  found  that  ii>  often 
does  work,  still  not  the  emotion,  but  its  consequences, 
must  in  the  most  favorable  case  give  us  what  we 
seek.  All  the  forms  of  sympathy  are  mere  impulses. 
It  is  the  insight  to  which  they  bring  us  that  has 
moral  value.  And  again,  the  realization  of  our 
neighbor's  existence  is  not  at  all  the  discovery  that 
he  is  more  or  less  useful  to  us  personally.  All  that 
would  contribute  to  selfishness.  In  an  entirely  dif- 
ferent way  we  must  realize  his  existence,  if  we  are  to 
be  really  altruistic.  What  then  is  our  neighbor? 

We  find  that  out  by  treating  him  in  thought  just 
as  we  do  ourselves.  What  art  thou  ?  Thou  art  now 
just  a  present  state,  with  its  experiences,  thoughts, 
and  desires.  But  what  is  thy  future  Self  ?  Simply 
future  states,  future  experiences,  future  thoughts 


THE  MORAL  INSIGHT.  157 

and  desires,  that,  although  not  now  existing  for  thee, 
are  postulated  by  thee  as  certain  to  come,  and  as  in 
some  real  relation  to  thy  present  Self.  What  then 
is  thy  neighbor  ?  He  too  is  a  mass  of  states,  of  ex- 
periences, thoughts,  and  desires,  just  as  real  as  thou 
art,  no  more  but  yet  no  less  present  to  thy  experi- 
ence now  than  is  thy  future  Self.  He  is  not  that 
face  that  frowns  or  smiles  at  thee,  although  often 
thou  thinkest  of  him  as  only  that.  He  is  not  the 
arm  that  strikes  or  defends  thee,  not  the  voice  that 
speaks  to  thee,  not  that  machine  that  gives  thee 
what  thou  desirest  when  thou  movest  it  with  the 
offer  of  money.  To  be  sure,  thou  dost  often  think 
of  him  as  if  he  were  that  automaton  yonder,  that  an- 
swers thee  when  thou  speakest  to  it.  But  no,  thy 
neighbor  is  as  actual,  as  concrete,  as  thou  art.  Just 
as  thy  future  is  real,  though  not  now  thine,  so  thy 
neighbor  is  real,  though  his  thoughts  never  are  thy 
thoughts.  Dost  thou  believe  this  ?  Art  thou  sure 
what  it  means  ?  This  is  for  thee  the  turning-point 
of  thy  whole  conduct  towards  him.  What  we  now 
ask  of  thee  is  no  sentiment,  no  gush  of  pity,  no 
tremulous  weakness  of  sympathy,  but  a  calm,  clear 
insight. 

But  one  says  :  "  All  this  have  I  done  from  my 
youth  up.  Surely  I  hold  and  always  have  held  my 
neighbor  to  be  real  and  no  automaton.  Surely  I 
have  feared  his  reproof,  have  been  angry  at  his  ill- 
will,  have  rejoiced  in  his  sympathy,  have  been  influ- 
enced by  his  opinions,  all  my  life.  And  yet  I  have 
remained  selfish."  Nay,  but  just  at  the  moment 
when  thou  hadst  to  act  towards  him  so  or  so,  thou 


158         THE   RELIGIOUS  ASPECT   OF   PHILOSOPHY. 

wert  no  longer  quick  to  realize  him.  Then  it  was 
that  thy  passion  made  him  for  thee  a  shadow.  Thou 
couldst  not  love  him,  because  thou  didst  forget  who 
he  was.  Thou  didst  believe  in  him  enough  to  fear 
him,  to  hate  him,  to  fight  with  him,  to  revenge  thy- 
self upon  him,  to  use  his  wit  as  thy  tool,  but  not 
enough  to  treat  him  as  real,  even  as  thou  thyself  art 
real.  He  seems  to  thee  a  little  less  living  than  thou. 
His  life  is  dim,  it  is  cold,  it  is  a  pale  fire  beside  thy 
own  burning  desires.  He  is  a  symbol  of  passion  to 
thee,  and  imperfectly,  coldly,  with  dull  assent,  with- 
out full  meaning  to  thy  words,  thou  dost  indeed  say, 
when  asked,  that  the  symbol  stands  for  something 
real,  as  real  as  thyself.  But  what  those  words  mean, 
—  hast  thou  realized  it,  as,  through  selfish  feeling, 
thou  dost  realize  thy  equally  external  future  Self  ? 

If  he  is  real  like  thee,  then  is  his  life  as  bright  a 
light,  as  warm  a  fire,  to  him,  as  thine  to  thee  ;  his 
will  is  as  full  of  struggling  desires,  of  hard  problems, 
of  fateful  decisions  ;  his  pains  are  as  hateful,  his 
joys  as  dear.  Take  whatever  thou  knowest  of  desire 
and  of  striving,  of  burning  love  and  of  fierce  hatred, 
realize  as  fully  as  thou  canst  what  that  means,  and 
then  with  clear  certainty  add  :  Such  as  that  is  for 
me,  so  is  it  for  him,  nothing  less.  If  thou  dost  that, 
can  he  remain  to  thee  what  he  has  been,  a  picture,  a 
plaything,  a  comedy,  or  a  tragedy,  in  brief  a  mere 
Show?  Behind  all  that  show  thou  hast  indeed 
dimly  felt  that  there  is  something.  Know  that 
truth  thoroughly.  Thou  hast  regarded  his  thought, 
his  feeling,  as  somehow  different  in  sort  from  thine. 
Thou  hast  said :  "A  pain  in  him  is  not  like  a  pain 


THE   MORAL   INSIGHT.  159 

in  me,  but  something  far  easier  to  bear."  Thou  hast 
made  of  him  a  ghost,  as  the  imprudent  man  makes 
of  his  future  self  a  ghost.  Even  when  thou  hast 
feared  his  scorn,  his  hate,  his  contempt,  thou  hast 
not  fully  made  him  for  thee  as  real  as  thyself.  His 
laughter  at  thee  has  made  thy  face  feel  hot,  his 
frowns  and  clenched  fists  have  cowed  thee,  his  sneers 
have  made  thy  throat  feel  choked.  But  that  was 
only  the  social  instinct  in  thee.  It  was  not  a  full 
sense  of  his  reality.  Even  so  the  little  baby  smiles 
back  at  one  that  smiles  at  it,  but  not  because  it 
realizes  the  approving  joy  of  the  other,  only  because 
it  by  instinct  enjoys  a  smiling  face ;  and  even  so  the 
baby  is  frightened  at  harsh  speech,  but  not  because 
it  realizes  the  other's  anger.  So,  dimly  and  by  in- 
stinct, thou  has  lived  with  thy  neighbor,  and  hast 
known  him  not,  being  blind.  Thou  hast  even  de- 
sired his  pain,  but  thou  hast  not  fully  realized  the 
pain  that  thou  gavest.  It  has  been  to  thee,  not 
pain  in  itself,  but  the  sight  of  his  submission,  of  his 
tears,  or  of  his  pale  terror.  Of  thy  neighbor  thou 
hast  made  a  thing,  no  Self  at  all. 

When  thou  hast  loved,  hast  pitied,  or  hast  rever- 
enced thy  neighbor,  then  thy  feeling  has  possibly 
raised  for  a  moment  the  veil  of  illusion.  Then  thou 
hast  known  what  he  truly  is,  a  Self  like  thy  present 
Self.  But  thy  selfish  feeling  is  too  strong  for  thee. 
Thou  hast  forgotten  soon  again  what  thou  hadst  seen, 
and  hast  made  even  of  thy  beloved  one  only  the  instru- 
ment of  thy  own  pleasure.  Even  out  of  thy  power 
to  pity  thou  hast  made  an  object  of  thy  vainglory. 
Thy  reverence  has  turned  again  to  pride.  Thou  hast 


160         THE   RELIGIOUS   ASPECT    OF   PHILOSOPHY. 

accepted  the  illusion  once  more.  No  wonder  that  in 
this  darkness  thou  findest  selfishness  the  only  rule  of 
any  meaning  for  thy  conduct.  Thou  forgottest  that 
without  realization  of  thy  future  and  as  yet  unreal 
self,  even  selfishness  means  nothing.  Thou  forgot- 
test that  if  thou  gavest  thy  present  thought  even  so 
to  the  task  of  realizing  thy  neighbor's  life,  selfishness 
would  seem  no  more  plain  to  thee  than  the  love  of 
thy  neighbor. 

Have  done  then  with  this  illusion  that  thy  Self 
is  all  in  all.  Intuition  tells  thee  no  more  about  thy 
future  Self  than  it  tells  thee  about  thy  neighbors. 
Desire,  bred  in  thee  by  generations  of  struggle  for 
existence,  emphasizes  the  expectation  of  thy  own 
bodily  future,  the  love  for  thy  own  bodily  welfare, 
and  makes  thy  body's  life  seem  alone  real.  But  sim- 
ply try  to  know  the  truth.  The  truth  is  that  all  this 
world  of  life  about  thee  is  as  real  as  thou  art.  All 
conscious  life  is  conscious  in  its  own  measure.  Pain 
is  pain,  joy  is  joy,  everywhere  even  as  in  thee.  The 
result  of  thy  insight  will  be  inevitable.  The  illusion 
vanishing,  the  glorious  prospect  opens  before  thy 
vision.  Seeing  the  oneness  of  this  life  everywhere, 
the  equal  reality  of  all  its  moments,  thou  wilt  be 
ready  to  treat  it  all  with  the  reverence  that  prudence 
would  have  thee  show  to  thy  own  little  bit  of  future 
life.  What  prudence  in  its  narrow  respectability 
counseled,  thou  wilt  be  ready  to  do  universally.  As 
the  prudent  man,  seeing  the  reality  of  his  future 
self,  inevitably  works  for  it ;  so  the  enlightened  man, 
seeing  the  reality  of  all  conscious  life,  realizing  that 
"it  is  no  shadow,  but  fact,  at  once  and  inevitably  de- 


THE  MORAL  INSIGHT.  161 

sires,  if   only  for  that   one   moment  of   insight,  to 
enter  into  the  service  of  the  whole  of  it. 

So  the  illusion  of  selfishness  vanishes  for  thy 
present  thought  (alas !  not  for  thy  future  conduct, 
O  child  of  passion ! ),  when  thou  lookest  at  what 
selfishness  has  so  long  hidden  from  thee.  Thou  seest 
now  the  universal  life  as  a  whole,  just  as  real  as  thou 
art,  identical  in  joy  and  sorrow.  The  conflict  of 
selfishness  and  unselfishness  vanishes.  Selfishness  is 
but  a  half  realization  of  the  truth  expressed  in  un- 
selfishness. Selfishness  says :  I  shall  exist.  Un- 
selfishness says :  The  Other  Life  is  as  My  Life. 
To  realize  another's  pain  as  pain  is  to  cease  to  desire 
it  in  itself.  Hatred  is  illusion.  Cowardly  sympa- 
thy, that  hides  its  head  for  fear  of  realizing  the  neigh- 
bor's pain,  is  illusion.  But  unselfishness  is  the  real- 
ization of  life.  Unselfishness  leads  thee  out  of  the 
mists  of  blind  self -adoration,  and  shows  thee,  in  all 
the  life  of  nature  about  thee,  the  one  omnipresent, 
conscious  struggle  for  the  getting  of  the  desired.  In 
all  the  songs  of  the  forest  birds  ;  in  all  the  cries  of 
the  wounded  and  dying,  struggling  in  the  captor's 
power ;  in  the  boundless  sea,  where  the  myriads  of 
water-creatures  strive  and  die  ;  amid  all  the  countless 
hordes  of  savage  men  ;  in  the  hearts  of  all  the  good 
and  loving  ;  in  the  dull,  throbbing  hearts  of  all  pris- 
oners and  captives ;  in  all  sickness  and  sorrow ;  in 
all  exultation  and  hope  ;  in  all  our  devotion ;  in  all 
our  knowledge,  —  everywhere  from  the  lowest  to  the 
noblest  creatures  and  experiences  on  our  earth,  the 
same  conscious,  burning,  willful  life  is  found,  end- 
lessly manifold  as  the  forms  of  the  living  creatures, 
ll 


162         THE  RELIGIOUS   ASPECT    OF   PHILOSOPHY. 

unquenchable  as  the  fires  of  the  sun,  real  as  these  im- 
pulses that  even  now  throb  in  thy  own  little  selfish 
heart.  Lift  up  thy  eyes,  behold  that  life,  and  then 
turn  away  and  forget  it  as  thou  canst ;  but  if  thou 
hast  known  that,  thou  hast  begun  to  know  thy  duty. 


VI. 

But  this  unity  that  the  moral  insight  has  found 
for  us  in  life  must  not  be  falsely  interpreted. 
Rightly  interpreted,  the  moral  insight  will  solve  for 
us  many  very  difficult  problems ;  but  we  must  not 
imagine  that  it  shows  us  all  this  individual  life  as 
in  any  mystical  sense  already  actually  in  the  har- 
mony that  we  seek.  Not  because  these  aims  are  al- 
ready in  themselves  one,  but  because  we,  as  moral 
seers,  unite  in  one  moment  of  insight  the  realization 
of  all  these  aims,  for  that  reason  alone  is  this  life 
one  for  us.  It  is  in  this  sense  alone  that  the  moral 
insight  gives  us  a  solution  of  the  problem  of  egoism 
and  altruism,  as  well  as  a  foundation  for  a  general 
doctrine  of  the  Highest  Good.  The  moral  insight 
does  not  enable  us  to  say  :  These  beings  have  always 
actually  but  blindly  sought  what  was  in  itself  the 
Highest  Good.  We  can  only  say :  Each  one  has 
sought  in  his  blindness  only  what  was  to  him  desir- 
able. And  not,  save  by  the  realization  of  the  con- 
flict of  desire,  can  the  truly  highest  good  be  con- 
ceived. The  moral  insight  discovers  harmony  not 
as  already  implied  in  the  nature  of  these  blind,  con- 
flicting wills,  but  as  an  ideal  to  be  attained  by  hard 
work. 


THE   MORAL   INSIGHT.  163 

We  point  this  out  in  order  to  show  that  we  do  not 
fall  into  the  hackneyed  error  of  those  moralists  who 
insist  that  they  merely  tell  men  what  one  thing  it  is 
that  men  have  all  been  blindly  seeking.  Such  mor- 
alists often  say  :  u  Our  system  is  but  an  expression 
of  the  tendency  that  was  always  there,  latent  in 
men.  It  tells  them  in  plain  words  what  they  al- 
ways wanted,  and  then  it  tells  them  how  to  get  this 
end."  This  specious  pretense  of  so  many  moral  sys- 
tems we  have  implicitly  condemned  in  the  previous 
part  of  our  discourse.  It  constitutes  in  many  cases 
that  appeal  to  the  physical  facts  which  we  have  set 
aside  as  always  useless  and  often  ungrounded.  If 
one  looks  the  pretense  fairly  in  the  face,  how  flat 
and  stale  it  seems  !  Yonder  vast  wealth  of  conflict- 
ing aims  among  men,  base  and  noble,  devilish  and 
divine,  —  what  moralist  has  been  able  to  sum  all  of 
them  up  in  any  formula,  save  in  the  wholly  abstract 
formula  that  we  have  above  referred  to,  namely, 
that  all  these  beings  seek  what  seems  to  them  desir- 
able. How  presumptuous  to  say  to  them :  "  In  fact 
you  all  desire  this  that  I  formulate  in  my  text-book 
of  morals."  In  fact  they  do  not.  And  it  is  absurd 
to  watch  the  turnings  and  twistings  of  language  by 
which  a  moralist  tries  to  make  out  that  they  do. 
For  instance,  let  the  moralist  be  J.  S.  Mill,  and  let 
him  declare,  as  he  does,  that  happiness  is  the  one 
goal  of  all  men.  If  happiness  includes  the  attain- 
ment  of  any  possible  object  of  anybody's  desire,  then 
indeed  the  theory  is  a  truism.  But  with  this  truism, 
of  course,  no  sort  of  progress  would  have  been  made 
in  ethics.  Mill  must  tell  us  something  about  what 


164         THE   RELIGIOUS   ASPECT    OF   PHILOSOPHY. 

sorts  of  happiness  there  are,  and  about  what  sorts 
ought  to  be  sought  most  of  all.  He  says,  as  we 
know,  that  there  are  "  higher  "  and  "  lower  "  pleas- 
ures, and  that  higher  pleasures  ought  to  be  sought 
in  preference  to  the  others,  the  pleasure  of  the  intel- 
lect, of  generosity,  etc.,  instead  of  the  sensual  pleas- 
ures. What  can  be  the  proof  ?  That  happiness 
was  the  goal  we  were  to  learn,  because  all  men  ac- 
tually seek  it.  But  that  the  "  higher  "  happiness  is 
the  goal,  rather  than  a  lower  form,  how  do  we  learn 
that  ?  Because  men  always  choose  it  ?  In  fact  they 
do  not.  So  Mill  has  to  shift  the  ground  a  little. 
They  do  not  all  of  them  actually  seek  it,  but  they 
would  seek  it  if  they  knew  it.  Most  of  them  are  ig- 
norant of  what  they  would  prize  most,  namely,  of 
these  "  higher "  pleasures.  But  here  again  Mill 
meets  a  disheartening  fact.  Most  men,  if  they  ever 
love  "  higher "  pleasures  at  all,  are  found  loving 
them  more  for  a  while  in  the  ideal  enthusiasm  of 
youth  than  later  in  the  prosaic  dullness  of  middle 
life.  Men  who  have  known  the  "  higher  "  happi- 
ness do  then  deliberately  turn  away  from  it.  This 
is  a  regular  fact  of  life,  well  known,  and  often  la- 
mented. How  does  this  agree  with  Mill's  doctrine  ? 
Alas !  it  does  not  agree,  and  only  by  worthless  de- 
vices can  he  conceal  from  himself  the  fact.  The 
people  who  enjoy  the  higher  know  the  lower  and  re- 
ject it.  The  people  who  enjoy  the  lower  do  not 
know  of  the  higher,  or,  if  they  ever  knew  it,  they 
have  forgotten  it,  or  if  they  have  not  quite  forgotten 
the  higher,  they  have  "  lost  capacity  for  it."  As  if 
all  this  could  not  just  as  plausibly  be  said  from  the 


THE   MORAL  INSIGHT.  165 

side  of  the  "  lower  "  pleasures.  Just  as  if  it  were 
not  constantly  said  from  that  side  in  every  good 
drinking-song,  with  a  result  precisely  opposed  to 
Mill's.  In  fact  Mill  is  driven  in  this  controversy 
with  imaginary  opponents  to  the  worst  subterfuge 
possible  for  so  skilled  a  thinker,  when  he  at  last 
says  that  the  pleasure  which  seems  the  higher  of  two 
pleasures  to  the  "  most  of  those  who  have  experi- 
enced both  "  is  actually  the  higher.  For  thus,  to 
keep  up  the  show  of  merely  interpreting  to  men  their 
actual  will,  Mill  has  to  appeal  to  the  opinion  of  the 
majority,  has  to  use  a  purely  practical  habit  of  de- 
liberative assemblies  for  the  purpose  of  deciding  a 
question  of  theory,  and  then  has  most  absurdly  to 
declare  that  a  man's  experience  about  his  own 
pleasure  is  worth  nothing  as  a  test  of  its  value  un- 
less the  majority  of  his  fellows  agree  with  him  in 
his  judgment. 

In  fact  all  this  is  benevolent  trifling.  Men  declare 
at  one  time  one  pleasure  to  be  "  highest,"  that  is, 
most  desirable,  and  at  another  time  they  declare  an- 
other pleasure  to  be  the  only  desirable  one.  Differ- 
ent men  persist  in  having  different  aims.  To  de- 
fine their  duty  by  telling  them  that  they  all  have 
one  aim  is  wrong.  From  the  point  of  view  of  the 
moral  insight  all  this  struggling  life  becomes  one  ; 
but  that  is  not  because  it  as  yet  ceases  to  struggle, 
but  because  the  being  possessed  of  the  moral  insight 
comes  to  realize  it  all  at  once.  For  him  it  is  one, 
because  he  identifies  himself  with  the  struggling 
aims.  He  seeks  their  harmony,  and  must  do  so  if 
he  have  the  insight.  But  they  are  not  in  harmony 


166    THE  RELIGIOUS  ASPECT  OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

as  yet  at  all  ;  else  would  he  have  no  work  to  do. 
Let  him  then  not  deceive  himself.  The  conflict  itself 
is  real  and  not  illusory.  The  illusion  lies  in  the  fact 
that  no  one  of  the  fighters  realizes  the  inner  life  of 
the  others.  But  to  overcome  that  illusion  in  any 
soul  is  not  to  show  that  all  the  fighters  have  been 
desiring  the  same  thing. 

J.  S.  Mill  is  by  no  means  our  only  case  of  the  ef- 
fort to  convince  people  that  they  always  have  had 
one  object  of  search,  which  the  moralist  has  but  to 
name  in  order  to  bring  peace  on  the  earth.  Ben- 
tham  undertook  the  same  task,  and  showed  in  his 
v  blunt  way  as  much  skill  in  subterfuge  as  he  ever  ac- 
cused his  opponents  of  showing,  while  he  tried  to 
make  out  that  all  men  always  have  been  Bentham- 
ites, to  whom  pleasure  was  the  only  good.  Mr. 
Spencer  in  his  turn  tries  to  define  the  Good  so  that 
it  shall  agree  not  only  with  the  popular  usage  of  the 
word  good,  but  also  with  the  Spencerian  notion  of 
what  constitutes  the  Good.  If  anywhere  a  usage  of 
the  word  appears  that  does  not  agree  with  the  Spen- 
ceriaii  usage,  Mr.  Spencer  insists,  sometimes,  that, 
if  cross-questioned,  the  man  who  so  uses  it  would 
have  to  come  over  to  the  Spencerian  usage,  and 
sometimes  that  the  usage  in  question  is  a  survival 
in  culture  of  a  savage  notion,  or  that  it  is  in  some 
other  way  insignificant.  Thus  the  proof  of  Mr. 
Spencer's  view  about  the  nature  of  the  ideal  be- 
comes so  simple  and  easy  that  when,  a  little  further 
on,  it  is  necessary  to  recognize  the  existence  of  pes- 
simists, Mr.  Spencer  finds  no  difficulty  in  regarding 
it  as  perfectly  plain  that  a  man  can  become  a  pes- 


THE  MORAL  INSIGHT.  167 

simist  only  in  case  he  believes  that  the  Spencerian 
ideal  of  the  Good  is  unattainable.  Thus  axioms  are 
manufactured  whenever  we  need  them. 

All  this  is  mere  neglect  of  whatever  ideals  do  not 
at  once  fit  into  one's  own  ideal.  Such  neglect  is  un- 
worthy of  an  ethical  inquirer.  Yet  it  has  been  fre- 
quently committed  in  recent  times,  and  it  is  com- 
mitted whenever  a  man  endeavors  or  pretends,  as 
Professor  Clifford  also  very  skillfully  endeavored 
and  pretended,  to  found  ethical  science  wholly  upon 
the  basis  and  by  the  methods  of  natural  science. 
Such  attempts  are  like  the  efforts  of  a  man  trying  to 
build  a  steamboat,  who  should  first  drop  the  steam- 
engine  into  the  water,  and  then  seek  to  build  the 
boat  up  about  the  engine  so  as  to  float  it  and  be 
driven  by  it.  For  natural  science  will  indeed  give 
us  the  engine  of  our  applied  ethics,  as  indispensa- 
ble as  the  steam-engine  to  the  boat.  But  first  we 
must  lay  the  keel,  and  we  must  get  the  boat  ready 
for  the  engine,  the  ideal  ready  for  the  science  that 
is  to  apply  it.  All  such  attempts  as  those  that  put 
the  "  scientific  basis  "  first,  lamely  strive  to  conceal 
their  helplessness  behind  a  show  of  appealing  to  the 
"  facts  of  human  nature  and  of  the  social  structure, 
as  science  discovers  them."  But  these  facts  reveal 
a  confused  warfare  of  aims  among  men,  no  one  aim 
being  actually  chosen  by  the  whole  of  men.  And 
then  the  "  scientific  moralist "  tries  to  show  by  all 
sorts  of  devices  that  all  men  really  have  the  same 
aim.  But  he  cannot  show  that,  because  it  is  not 
true.  What  aim  is  common  to  the  whole  life  of  any 
one  of  us  ?  Much  less  then  is  any  aim  common  to 
all  men. 


THE   RELIGIOUS   ASPECT   OF   PHILOSOPHY. 


But  this  mistake  is  not  specially  modern.  Not 
only  the  modern  scientific  moralists  have  been  guilty 
of  it,  but  moral  preachers  of  all  schools  since  Soc- 
rates have  been  prone  to  insist  on  occasion,  for  pur- 
poses of  persuasion,  that  somehow  or  other  all  evil 
conduct  arises  from  mere  ignorance  of  what  one 
wants.  This  view  is  a  mistake.  One  may  want 
anything,  and  may  know  it  very  well.  There  is  no 
known  limit  to  the  caprice  and  to  the  instability  of 
the  human  will.  If  you  find  anybody  desiring  any- 
thing, the  only  tolerably  sure  and  fairly  universal 
comment  is,  that  he  will  stop  desiring  it  by  and  by. 
You  can  seldom  get  any  ultimate  analysis  of  the 
motive  of  such  a  desire. 

But  we  do  not  found  our  moral  system  on  any 
such  analysis.  We  do  not  say  even  that  it  is  phys- 
ically possible  for  any  of  us  to  get  and  to  keep  the 
moral  insight  long  together.  What  we  affirm  can 
once  more  briefly  be  summed  up  as  follows :  — 

1.  Moral  insight,  whenever,  however,  to  whomso- 
ever it  comes,  consists  in  the  realization  of  the  true 
inner  nature  of  certain  conflicting  wills  that  are  ac- 
tual in  the  world. 

2.  An  absolute  moral  insight,  which  we  can  con- 
ceive, but  which   we   never   fully  attain   ourselves, 
would  realize  the  true  inner  nature  of  all  the  con- 
flicting wills  in  the  world. 

3.  The  moral  insight  involves  from  its  very  na- 
ture, for  those  who  have  it,  the  will  to  harmonize, 
so  far  as  may  be  possible,  the  conflicting  wills  that 
there  are  in  the  world,  and  that  are  realized  at  the 
moment  of  insight. 


THE   MORAL   INSIGHT.  169 

4.  If  the  moral  insight  be  concerned  directly  with 
two  conflicting  wills,  my  neighbor's   and  my  own, 
then  this  insight  involves  the  will  to  act  as  if  my 
neighbor  and  myself  were  one  being  that  possessed 
at  once  the  aims  of  both  of  us. 

5.  If  the  moral  insight   be  concerned  with   con- 
flicting general  aims,  such  as    could  express  them- 
selves in  systems  of  conduct,  then  the  moral  insight 
involves  the  will  to  act,  so  far  as  may  be,  as  if  one 
included  in  one's  own   being  the  life   of   all  those 
whose  conflicting  aims  one  realizes. 

6.  Absolute  moral  insight  would  involve  the  will 
to  act  henceforth  with  strict  regard  to  the  total  of 
the  consequences  of  one's  act  for  all  the  moments 
and  aims  that  are  to  be  affected  by  this  act. 

7.  The  moral  insight  stands  in  all  its  forms  op- 
posed to  ethical  dogmatism,  which  accepts  one  sepa- 
rate end  only.      The  insight   arises  from  the  con- 
sciousness that  this  one  aim  is  not  the  only  one  that 
is  actual.     Imperfectly  and  blindly  ethical  dogma- 
tism also  realizes  this  truth,  and  so  hates  or  even 
anathematizes  the  opposing  aims.     But  the  hatred 
is  imperfect  realization.     The  moral  insight  there- 
fore says  to  those  who  possess  the  dogmatic  spirit : 
"In  so  far  as  you  seek  a  reason  for  the  faith  that  is 
in  you,  you  can  find  none  short  of  the  assumption  of 
my  position."     The  moral  insight  says  to  itself,  "  I 
ought  not  to  return  to  the  dogmatic  point  of  view." 
So  the  moral  insight  insists  upon  giving  itself  the 
rule-,  "  Dogmatism  is  wrong." 

8.  The  only  alternatives  to  the  moral  insight  are  : 
(a)  ethical  dogmatism,  which  once  for  all  gives  up 


170         THE  RELIGIOUS  ASPECT   OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

the  effort  to  get  any  basis  for  ethics  save  its  own  ir- 
rational caprice ;  and  (6)  ethical  skepticism,  which, 
,  as  we  have  seen,  is  only  a  preliminary  form  of  the 
moral  insight,  and  passes  over  into  the  latter  upon 
reflection. 

9.  There  is  no  other  distinction  between  right  and 
wrong  save  what  the  dogmatic  systems  on  the  one 
hand  give  as  their  capricious  determinations,  and 
what  the  moral  insight  on  the  other  hand  shows  as 
the  expression  of  what  it  involves. 

Our  conclusion  so  far  is  therefore  this  :  Remain 
blind  if  you  will ;  we  have  no  means  of  preventing 
you.  But  if  you  want  to  know  the  whole  ethical 
truth,  you  can  find  it  only  in  the  moral  insight.  All 
else  is  caprice.  To  get  the  moral  insight,  you  must 
indeed  have  the  will  to  get  the  truth  as  between  the 
conflicting  claims  of  two  or  more  doctrines.  This 
will  being  given,  the  moral  insight  is  the  necessary 
outcome  even  of  skepticism  itself. 

Yet  now,  after  all  our  argument  and  enthusiasm, 
the  reader  must  know  that  what  we  have  so  far  por- 
trayed is  only  the  most  elementary  aspect  of  the 
moral  insight.  The  unity  that  we  have  insisted  upon 
is  so  far  an  empty  unity,  a  negative  freedom  from 
conflict.  To  show  the  real  worth  of  this  whole  view, 
we  must  pass  from  the  beggarly  elements  of  duty  to 
more  advanced  conceptions.  The  moral  insight  must 
be  so  developed  as  to  tell  us  about  the  Organization 
of  Life.  The  empty  unity  must  be  filled  with  con- 
tent. We  must  discuss  more  in  concreto  what  men 
possessed  of  the  moral  insight  will  do. 


CHAPTER    VII. 

THE   ORGANIZATION   OF   LIFE. 

Die  wahre  Freiheit  ist  als  Sittlichkeit  dies,  dass  der  Wille  nicht  sub- 
jektive,  d.  i.  eigensiichtige,  sondern  allgemeinen  Inhalt  zu  seinen 
Zwecken  hat.  —  HEGEL,  Encyclopddie. 

UNEXPECTEDLY  we  have  been  saved  from  our  eth- 
ical skepticism  even  in  and  through  the  very  act  of 
thinking  it  out.  Here,  as  elsewhere  in  philosophy, 
the  truth  is  to  be  reached,  neither  by  dreading  nor  by 
discountenancing  the  doubt,  but  by  accepting,  expe- 
riencing, and  absorbing  the  doubt,  until,  as  an  ele- 
ment in  our  thought,  it  becomes  also  an  element  in 
an  higher  truth.  We  do  not  say,  therefore,  to  com- 
mend our  moral  principle,  as  it  has  just  been  pro- 
pounded, that  it  is  immediately  acceptable  to  all 
healthy  consciences,  or  that  it  is  a  pious,  or  a  respect- 
able, or  a  popularly  recognized  principle.  We  say 
only  this  :  Doubt  rationally  about  moral  doctrines, 
and  your  doubt  itself,  if  real,  thorough-going,  all-em- 
bracing, merciless,  will  involve  this  very  principle  of 
ours.  We  find  the  principle  by  means  of  the  univer- 
sal doubt,  and  it  is  this  method  of  procedure  that 
distinguishes  the  foregoing  discussion  of  the  basis  of 
morals  from  many  of  those  that  have  previously  been 
concerned  with  this  problem.  To  point  out  that  the 
average  man,  or  the  reputed  saint,  or  the  inspired 


172         THE   RELIGIOUS  ASPECT   OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

prophet,  or  the  great  poet,  or  the  reader  himself, 
whenever  he  is  enthusiastic  has  or  has  had  a  given 
ideal,  is  not  to  justify  this  ideal.  Yet  of  such  a  na- 
ture are  the  justifications  that  most  moralists  have 
given  for  their  ideals.  If  we  have  gained  our  re- 
sult by  any  better  method,  that  was  because  we  were 
free  to  doubt  all  those  pretended  defenses  of  the 
good.  We  have  found  the  nature  of  the  absolute 
and  universal  will,  by  rigidly  questioning  the  signifi- 
cance of  all  the  individual  wills. 

But  our  ideal  must  be  made  to  do  work  in  the 
world.  It  must  accomplish  something,  by  solving 
for  us  a  few  concrete  moral  problems,  such  as  actu- 
ally trouble  men.  Even  the  present  discussion  must 
consider  some  of  these  consequences  of  our  general 
principle ;  for  religious  philosophy,  in  seeking  an 
ideal  for  life,  does  not  want  a  barren  abstraction, 
but  such  an  ideal  as  can  also  be  our  guide.  What 
does  our  principle  tell  a  man  to  do  ? 

The  principle,  as  is  plain,  may  be  viewed  in  two 
ways.  If  by  moral  insight  we  mean  what  the  last 
chapter  defined,  namely,  insight  into  the  fact  of  the 
existence  of  other  conscious  wills  besides  our  own, 
coupled  with  full  rational  appreciation  of  this  truth, 
then  our  principle  may  be  viewed  as  saying  to  each 
of  us  :  Get  and  keep  the  moral  insight  as  an  expe- 
rience^ and  do  all  that  tliou  canst  to  extend  among 
men  this  experience.  On  the  other  hand,  the  prin- 
ciple may  be  equally  well  viewed  as  saying :  Act 
out  in  each  case  what  the  moral  insight  bids  thee 
do  ;  that  is,  as  before  explained,  Having  made  thy- 
self, in  so  far  as  thou  art  able,  one  with  all  the  con- 


THE   ORGANIZATION  OF  LIFE.  173 

flicting  wills  before  thee,  act  out  the  resulting  uni- 
versal will  as  it  then  arises  in  thee.  Two  classes  of 
human  duties  are  thus  defined,  one  formal  and  pro- 
visional, the  other  permanent.  We  must  explain  in 
some  measure  each  of  them,  in  order  that  we  may 
show  the  practical  applications  of  our  moral  prin- 
ciple. 


The  first  class  of  duties  comprises  those  that  have 
most  especially  to  do  with  the  moral  education  of  our 
race.  We  are,  and  must  long  remain,  exceedingly 
imperfect  and  blind  creatures.  If  there  is  possible 
any  state  of  humanity  in  which  all  shall  be  ready  to 
act  in  accordance  with  the  moral  insight,  that  state 
must  be,  morally  speaking,  better  than  any  other. 
Therefore  the  first  demand  that  the  moral  insight 
makes  of  us  so  soon  as  we  get  it  is  :  So  act  as  to 
increase  the  number  of  those  who  possess  the  insight. 
Here,  of  course,  is  a  precept  of  a  very  formal  char- 
acter, and  plainly  provisional  in  its  nature.  It  is  as 
if  one  were  to  be  among  blind  men,  himself  blind, 
and  were  by  some  magical  act,  say  by  accidentally 
washing  in  a  miraculous  fountain,  to  get  at  one  stroke 
and  for  the  first  time  the  power  of  sight,  in  all  its 
maturity  and  perfection.  Such  an  one  would  per- 
haps say :  "  How  noble  is  this  new  sense  !  But  to 
what  end  shall  I  use  it  ?  For  the  first  I  must  use 
it  to  bring  these  other  men  to  the  fountain,  to  wash 
their  eyes,  that  they  may  miraculously  learn  in  one 
instant  to  see  this  glorious  world."  But  some  one 
might  object :  "  In  this  way,  if  the  only  use  to  be 


174         THE   RELIGIOUS   ASPECT    OF   PHILOSOPHY. 

made  of  a  man's  sight  is  to  extend  the  power  of  sight 
to  others,  of  what  use  is  the  power  itself  ?  The  sole 
aim  of  seeing  cannot  be  to  cause  others  to  see.  Else 
what  good  would  result  to  any  one,  if  all  followed 
your  precept?"  The  answer  would  be  plain: 
"  When  all  or  the  most  of  us  get  the  power,  then 
indeed  we  can  use  it  for  other  ends.  But  because  it 
is  the  best  of  powers  for  all  these  other  ends,  there- 
fore the  best  provisional  use  to  make  of  it  is,  not  to 
spend  much  time  upon  these  ends,  but  to  spend  time 
upon  extending  the  possession  of  the  power.  When 
this  is  done,  then  first  will  begin  the  real  use  of  the 
power  for  its  own  sake."  As  in  this  case  of  the  sup- 
posed miraculous  acquirement  of  a  new  sense  in  all 
its  maturity  of  power  at  one  stroke,  so  it  is  in  case 
of  the  much  more  gradual  acquirement  of  the  moral 
insight.  To  be  sure,  the  ultimate  aim  of  life  cannot 
be  merely  the  extension  of  the  power  to  realize  the 
wills  that  are  active  about  us,  but  must  at  last  be 
found  by  defining  the  course  of  action  that  best  har- 
monizes these  wills.  But,  provisionally,  we  have  a 
task  before  us  that  is  easily  defined,  because  elemen- 
tary. Harmony  cannot  be  even  partially  attained, 
the  best  human  activity  cannot  be  even  imperfectly 
developed,  until  a  very  great  number  of  men  have 
this,  the  very  first,  most  elementary  requisite  of  con- 
scious morality,  namely,  the  power  to  see  the  facts  of 
human  life  as  they  are.  So  long  as  a  man  is  bound 
up  in  his  individual  will,  he  may  be  instinctively  up- 
right, he  cannot  be  consciously  and  with  clear  intent 
righteous.  So  long  therefore  as  this  is  true  of  him, 
he  will  be  dependent  on  traditions  that  are  often  per- 


THE   ORGANIZATION   OF  LIFE.  175 

nicious,  on  conscience  that  is  often  brutal  prejudice, 
on  faith  that  is  often  bigotry,  on  emotion  that  is  the 
blindest  of  all  guides  ;  and  if  he  does  good  or  if  he 
does  evil,  the  power  responsible  for  his  deeds  will 
not  be  a  truly  moral  impulse.  To  gain  the  moral 
ends  of  humanity,  the  indispensable  prerequisite  is 
therefore  the  moral  insight  in  its  merely  formal  as- 
pect, as  an  human  power  and  as  an  experience  of  life. 
When  a  good  many  more  men  have  reached  the  pos- 
session of  this  power,  then  more  of  life  will  be  taken 
up  with  concrete  duties.  Until  that  time  conies,  the 
great  aim  must  be  this  formal  and  provisional  one  : 
to  produce  in  men  the  moral  mood,  and  so  to  pre- 
pare the  way  for  the  further  knowledge  of  the  high- 
est good.  If  we  put  the  matter  otherwise  we  may 
say :  The  mtfral  insight,  insisting  upon  the  need  of 
the  harmony  of  all  human  wills,  shows  us  that,  what- 
ever the  highest  human  good  may  be,  we  can  only 
attain  it  together,  for  it  involves  harmony.  The 
highest  good  then  is  not  to  be  got  by  any  one  of  us 
or  by  any  clique  of  us  separately.  Either  the  high- 
est good  is  for  humanity  unattainable,  or  the  human- 
ity of  the  future  must  get  it  in  common.  Therefore 
the  sense  of  community,  the  power  to  work  together, 
with  clear  insight  into  our  reasons  for  so  working, 
is  the  first  need  of  humanity.  Not  what  good  thing 
men  may  hereafter  come  to  see,  but  how  they  shall 
attain  the  only  sense  whereby  they  can  ever  get  to 
see  the  good,  is  the  great  present  human  concern. 

Starting  with  this  duty,  we  can  now  examine 
what  rule  of  life  this  duty  will  give  us.  Extend  the 
moral  insight  among  men,  and  in  thy  own  life: 


176         THE    RELIGIOUS  "ASPECT   OF   PHILOSOPHY. 

this  is  the  first  commandment.  The  direct  conse- 
quence is  that,  so  regarded,  the  first  duty  of  man  in 
the  present  day  cannot  be  either  to  get  happiness 
himself,  or,  in  view  of  this  present  state  of  human 
life,  to  make  other  people  happy.  All  that  he  may 
indeed  be  in  some  measure  required  to  do,  but  not, 
in  the  present  state  of  the  world,  as  an  end,  but  solely 
as  a  means  to  an  end.  This  at  all  events  is  not  the 
day  for  contentment,  but  for  work ;  and  joy  is  now 
a  proper  part  of  human  life  chiefly  in  so  far  as  it 
tends  to  preserve,  to  increase,  or  to  foster  the  moral 
insight.  Here  we  have  the  present  practical  solu- 
tion suggested  for  all  the  questions  about  the  right 
and  wrong  of  so-called  hedonism.  Hedonism  is  the 
product  of  an  imperfect  understanding  of  the  moral 
insight.  Benevolent  hedonism  springs  from  the  in- 
sight that  men  like  to  be  happy.  Eealizing  this,  the 
believer  in  universal  hedonism  says :  Make  men 
happy  so  far  as  thou  canst.  But  this  principle  of 
hedonism  is  surely  not  the  immediate  truth  for  this 
present  time,  whatever  may  or  may  not  turn  out  to 
be  the  case  in  future.  For  to  labor  to  increase  happi- 
ness may  for  the  present  mean  to  increase  the  moral 
blindness  of  men.  Some  sorts  of  happiness  tend  to 
make  us  blind,  as  has  in  fact  been  shown  in  a  for- 
mer chapter.  Unless  a  man  experiences  very  bit- 
terly the  reality  of  the  conflict  of  wills  in  this  world, 
the  moral  insight  is  apt  to  forsake  him.  But  until 
the  moral  insight  becomes  practically  universal,  the 
highest  good  for  humanity  cannot  be  got.  There- 
fore all  forms  of  happiness  that  hinder  rather  than 
help  the  moral  insight  are  evil,  and  we  ought  to  do 


THE   ORGANIZATION   OF   LIFE.  177 

what  we  can  to  get  rid  of  them  out  of  the  world. 
And  all  experiences,  however  painful,  that  certainly 
tend  to  the  increase  of  the  power  of  moral  insight, 
are  good  for  men ;  and  if  we  see  no  other  experi- 
ences more  suitable  for  this  purpose,  we  ought  to  do 
what  we  can  to  increase  among  men  the  number 
and  the  definiteness  of  these  pains. 

Yet  of  course  it  will  at  once  appear,  when  we  ex- 
amine human  emotional  experiences  in  the  light  of 
what  we  know  of  men,  that  there  is  a  decided  limit 
to  the  morally  educative  power  of  painful  experi- 
ences, and  that,  on  the  other  hand,  very  many  pleas- 
ant experiences  are  useful  to  the  moral  insight,  either 
by  directly  aiding  it,  or  by  preparing  a  man  to  at- 
tain it.  In  considering  this  branch  of  the  subject, 
we  at  last  reach  the  point  where  a  scientific  psy- 
chology can  give  us  a  great  deal  of  help.  We  re- 
jected the  so-called  "  scientific  basis  "  for  morals  be- 
cause it  founds  the  ought  to  be  upon  brutal  physical 
facts.  Now,  however,  we  can  turn  to  science  to  help 
us  in  our  present  task,  because,  having  defined  our 
ought  to  be,  we  are  dealing  with  applied  ethics,  and 
are  asking  how  this  moral  insight  is  to  be  attained. 
Psychology  must  tell  us  what  it  can  as  to  this  mat- 
ter. And  here  such  suggestions  as  those  in  Mr. 
Spencer's  "  Data  of  Ethics  "  are  indeed  a  useful  aid 
to  applied  moral  doctrine.  We  reject  wholly  the  no- 
tion that  Mr'  Spencer  or  any  like  teacher  has  even 
caught  a  glimpse  of  the  fundamental  ethical  problem. 
Mr.  Spencer  seems  to  be  in  the  most  childlike  igno- 
rance that  there  is  any  such  problem  at  all.  But  we 
are  glad  to  find  that  Mr.  Spencer  once  having  very 

12 


178         THE    RELIGIOUS   ASPECT    OF   PHILOSOPHY. 

illogically  accepted  a  partially  correct  fundamental 
notion  about  the  ideal  of  life,  does  suggest  a  good 
deal  about  this  problem  of  applied  ethics  with  which 
we  are  now  dealing.  He  does  tell  us  some  very  sen- 
sible things  about  the  attainment  of  this  ideal. 

Among  these  sensible  suggestions  is  the  insistence 
upon  the  value-  of  pleasure  as  an  indication  of  the 
increase  of  healthy  life  in  the  man  who  has  the  pleas- 
ure ;  and  the  further  insistence  upon  the  thought 
that,  since  pleasure  thus  indicates  in  some  wise 
health  and  efficiency,  and  since  efficiency  is  an  indis- 
pensable prerequisite  to  sound  practical  morality, 
there  must  always  be  a  certain  moral  presumption 
in  favor  of  happiness,  and  in  favor  of  whatever  tends 
to  increase  happiness.  Properly  understood  and 
limited,  this  doctrine  of  Mr.  Spencer's  is  an  obvious 
and  useful  consequence  from  what  we  know  of  psy- 
chology. Mr.  Spencer  dwells  on  it  at  tedious  and 
wholly  unnecessary  length,  but  he  is  surely  justified 
when  he  protests,  against  the  ascetics,  that  their 
ideal  man  must  be  in  general  a  puny,  inefficient,  and 
perhaps  wholly  burdensome  man,  whose  ill -health 
may  make  him,  at  last,  hopelessly  selfish.  This  we 
know  on  good  scientific  grounds,  and  it  is  well  to 
have  said  the  thing  plainly  in  an  ethical  treatise. 

But  what  is  the  result  ?  Is  happiness  the  only 
aim  of  life  because  the  permanently  unhappy  man  is 
apt  to  be  a  poor  diseased  creature,  useless,  or  even 
dangerous  ?  No  ;  the  consequence  of  all  this  is  that 
the  first  moral  aim  must  be  to  make  a  man  efficient 
in  possessing  and  extending  the  moral  insight.  Ef- 
ficiency for  moral  ends  is  still  our  proximate  goal. 


THE   ORGANIZATION   OF   LIFE.  179 

Happiness  is,  at  least  for  the  present,  only  a  subordi- 
nate means.  Therefore  we  say :  By  all  means  make 
men  happy,  so  far  as  their  happiness  tends  to  give 
them  and  to  preserve  in  them  moral  insight.  True 
it  is,  as  scientific  psychology  shows  us,  that  a  man, 
in  order  to  be  as  good  as  possible,  must  generally  be 
possessed  of  respectable  health,  of  what  he  thinks  a 
good  place  in  the  world,  of  friends,  and  of  numerous 
pleasures.  He  must  digest  well,  he  must  enjoy  the 
esteem  of  his  fellows,  he  must  be  strong,  and  he  must 
be  frequently  amused.  All  this  is  true,  and  is  in 
fact  a  commonplace.  When  an  ascetic  denies  this, 
he  maintains  a  pernicious  heresy,  that  tends  to  de- 
stroy moral  insight  by  depriving  men  of  the  phys- 
ical power  to  get  it.  But  these  facts  must  not  be 
misinterpreted.  Whatever  might  be  true  of  a  society 
in  which  moral  insight  had  been  attained,  nothing  is 
plainer  than  that  happiness  at  the  present  time  can- 
not be  regarded  from  our  point  of  view  as  more 
than  a  means  to  the  present  great  end.  If  we  try 
to  amuse  our  neighbors,  to  relieve  their  woes,  to  im- 
prove their  worldly  estate,  we  must  do  so  not  as  if 
this  were  the  end  of  the  present  life,  but  as  workers 
in  a  very  vast  drama  of  human  life,  whose  far-off 
purpose  must  govern  every  detail.  The  good  Sa- 
maritan must  say  to  himself,  as  he  helps  the  poor 
wretch  by  the  wayside  :  "  In  so  far  as  I  realize  only 
this  man's  need,  my  purpose  is  indeed  simply  to  re- 
lieve him.  But  my  purpose  must  be  higher  than  that. 
This  man  is  not  alone,  but  one  of  a  multitude.  My 
highest  aim  in  helping  him  is  not  to  make  him  indi- 
vidually happy,  but  to  increase  by  this,  as  by  all  my 


180         THE   RELIGIOUS   ASPECT    OF   PHILOSOPHY. 

acts,  the  harmony  of  mankind.  Not  alone  that  he 
may  by  and  by  go  away  and  enjoy  himself  do  I  help 
him  now,  but  because  by  so  doing  I  hope  through 
him  to  increase  among  men  moral  insight."  There- 
fore, notwithstanding  Schopenhauer's  ridicule,  Fichte 
was  right  in  saying  that  we  ought  to  treat  the  indi- 
vidual man  not  chiefly  as  an  individual,  but  as  an 
instrument  for  extending  and  serving  the  moral  law. 
Because  a  certain  kind  of  happiness  means  efficiency, 
and  efficiency  morality,  therefore  and  therefore  alone 
have  we  the  right  and  duty,  in  this  present  genera- 
tion, to  labor  for  this  kind  of  happiness. 

Equally,  therefore,  it  becomes  our  duty  to  labor 
to  increase  pain,  whenever  pain  is  the  best  means  of 
fostering  the  moral  insight.  Therefore,  in  this  pres- 
ent day,  it  cannot  be  our  duty  to  labor  to  diminish 
pain  in  the  world,  simply  as  pain.  Again  we  must 
appeal  to  psychology  to  guide  us  aright.  The  pains 
that  foster  moral  insight,  although  limited  in  num- 
ber and  intensity,  are  numerous,  and  still  imper- 
fectly defined.  It  would  be  a  useful  task  to  study 
more  in  detail  than  psychologists  have  yet  done,  the 
moralizing  power  of  pain.  This  is  a  task  for  the 
psychology  of  the  future.  In  general,  of  course,  we 
can  say  that  the  range  of  such  pains  has  been  much 
exaggerated  by  ascetics.  Bodily  pain,  if  severe,  is 
generally  brutalizing,  at  least  for  most  people,  and 
the  moral  insight  is  in  it'  only  in  so  far  as  the  past 
experience  of  bodily  pain  helps  us  to  know  the  sig- 
nificance of  the  suffering  of  others,  not  by  giving 
us  that  blind  emotion  of  sympathy  before  criticised, 
but  by  giving  us  the  means  to  form  a  cool  abstract 


THE   ORGANIZATION   OF   LIFE.  181 

estimate  of  the  value  of  this  evil  of  physical  pain. 
For  thus  we  can  realize  the  strength  of  the  will  that 
seeks  to  escape  it,  and  can  act  with  due  respect  to 
this  will.  But  nature  generally  gives  us  enough  ex- 
perience of  pain  to  furnish  excellent  material  for  the 
calculations  needed.  Therefore,  bodily  pains,  save 
as  punishments,  are  seldom  useful  instruments  for 
our  great  purpose.  Not  thus  can  self  be  duly  mor- 
tified. 

It  is  different  with  certain  mental  pains.  All 
those  that  tend  to  make  the  individual  feel  his  own 
necessary  limitations,  and  thereby  to  approach  the 
realization  of  the  great  world  of  life  about  him,  are 
necessary  evils.  His  will  must  be  overwhelmed,  that 
the  Universal  Will  may  have  place  to  establish  it- 
self in  him.  Therefore,  without  considering  whether 
we  are  thereby  increasing  or  diminishing  the  sum 
of  human  misery,  we  all  of  us  unhesitatingly  set 
about  the  work  of  contending  with  blind  self-con- 
fidence and  self-absorption  wherever  it  may  appear. 
Therefore  it  is  right  that  we  ridicule  all  pretentious 
mediocrity  that  is  unconscious  of  its  stupidities. 
Therefore,  in  fact,  it  is  right  that  we  should  criticise 
unsparingly  all  pretenders,  however  much  they  may 
be  pained  by  our  criticism.  Therefore  it  is  well  that 
we  should  feel  not  a  selfish  but  a  righteous  joy  when- 
ever pride  has  a  fall,  whenever  the  man  who  thinks 
that  he  is  something  discovers  of  a  truth  that  he  is 
nothing.  Therefore,  also,  do  we  put  down  excessive 
forwardness  and  vanity  in  growing  children,  although 
so  to  do  hurts  their  sensitive  young  selfishness  very 
keenly.  In  all  such  ways  we  must  ask  and  we  must 


182         THE   RELIGIOUS   ASPECT   OF   PHILOSOPHY. 

show  no  mercy,  save  when  these  keen  pains  of 
wounded  vanity  are  so  given  as  to  inflame  and  in- 
crease this  vanity  itself.  All  healthy,  truthful  criti- 
cism of  individual  limitations  is  a  duty,  even  if  it  is  a 
present  torture  to  the  individual  criticised.  For  this 
individual  is  blind  to  other  life  because  he  is  wrapped 
up  in  himself.  If  by  showing  him  his  insignificance 
you  can  open  his  eyes,  you  are  bound  to  do  so,  even 
though  you  make  him  writhe  to  see  his  worthless- 
ness.  For  what  we  here  defend  is  not  that  ill-natured 
criticism  whose  only  aim  is  to  gratify  the  miserable 
self  of  the  critic,  but  the  criticism  whose  edge  is 
turned  in  earnest  against  every  form  of  self-satisfac- 
tion that  hinders  insight.  Let  a  man  be  self-satis- 
fied when  he  is  at  rest,  after  dinner,  or  in  merry 
company.  It  is  a  harmless  and  even  a  useful  amuse- 
ment. But  when  he  is  at  work  doing  good  he  ought 
to  hate  self-satisfaction,  which  hinders  the  moral  in- 
sight, which  exalts  his  will  above  the  universal  will, 
which  takes  the  half-done  task  for  the  whole  task, 
and  altogether  glorifies  the  vanity  of  vanities.  If 
now  my  critic  rids  me  of  such  self-satisfaction,  he 
may  hurt  me  keenly,  but  he  is  my  best  friend.  My 
life  may  often  be  miserable  in  consequence,  but  then 
I  am  an  instrument,  whose  purpose  it  is  to  attain,  to 
foster,  to  extend,  and  to  employ  the  moral  insight. 
My  misery  is  a  drop,  evil  no  doubt  in  itself  (since 
my  poor  little  will  must  writhe  and  struggle  when  it 
sees  its  own  vanity  and  the  hopelessness  of  its  sepa- 
rate satisfactions),  but  a  relative  good,  since  through 
it  I  may  attain  to  the  moral  insight.  All  such  pains 
must  be  dealt  with  in  the  same  way.  Hence  the 


THE  ORGANIZATION   OF   LIFE.  183 

utilitarian  principle  of  benevolent  hedonism,  even  if 
right  in  its  application  to  the  far-off  future,  has  but 
little  direct  practical  application  to  a  life  that  must 
to-day  be  judged  by  such  standards  as  these. 


II. 

But  has  the  principle  of  hedonism  any  truth  even 
in  its  application  to  a  world  where  all  had  attained 
the  moral  insight  as  an  experience  ?  If  we  con- 
sider the  higher  human  activities,  whose  worth  is  not 
merely  provisional,  but  permanent,  the  activities  that 
men  will  carry  on  when  they  have  freed  themselves 
from  selfish  strife,  is  the  aggregate  happiness  as  such 
the  goal  of  the  action  of  this  unselfish  society  ? 

There  are  existent  already  among  men  activities 
that  belong  to  spheres  where  selfish  strife  is,  rela- 
tively speaking,  suppressed.  These  activities  are 
foreshadowings  of  the  life  of  the  possible  future  hu- 
manity that  may  come  to  possess  the  moral  insight. 
Art,  science,  philosophy,  are  the  types  of  such  life. 
These  activities  form  still  but  a  small  part  of  the 
aggregate  work  of  men,  a  ad  so  it  must  long  be  ;  yet, 
though  subordinated  in  extent  to  the  pressing  moral 
needs  of  an  imperfect  state,  these  activities  are  al- 
ready among  the  highest  in  our  lives.  But  now,  are 
they  valuable  because  of  the  aggregate  happiness 
that  they  cause,  or  for  some  other  reason  ?  To  judge 
of  this  we  must  study  the  definition  of  the  second, 
more  permanent  class  of  human  duties. 

Suppose  then  that  the  first  and  provisional  aim  of 
human  conduct  had  been  attained,  and  that  all  men 


184         THE   RELIGIOUS    ASPECT    OF   PHILOSOPHY. 

possessed  the  moral  insight,  what  would  this  insight 
then  lead  them  to  do  ?  Here  the  hedonist  will  expect 
to  have  his  revenge  for  our  previous  neglect  of  his 
advice.  "  My  precepts  have  been  set  aside  so  far," 
he  may  say,  "  as  having  no  immediate  application  to 
the  moral  needs  of  the  moment.  To  get  this  merely 
formal  condition  of  harmony  among  men,  the  moral 
man  has  been  advised  to  subordinate  all  direct  efforts 
towards  making  people  happy,  to  the  end  of  making 
them  first  possess  what  you  have  called  the  moral 
mood.  But  now  at  last,  in  the  supposed  case,  the 
great  end  has  been  attained,  and  men  are  formally 
moral.  Now  surely  they  have  nothing  to  do  but  to 
be  as  happy  as  possible.  So  at  last  my  plan  will  be 
vindicated,  and  the  ideal  man  will  come  to  be  a 
seeker  of  ideal  pleasures." 

The  hedonist  is  too  sanguine.  His  ideas  of  the 
highest  state  may  have  their  value,  but  they  are  in- 
definite in  at  least  one  respect.  When  he  says  that 
he  wants  all  his  ideal  men,  in  the  ideal  state,  to  be 
happy  together,  he  never  tells  us  what  he  means  by 
the  individual  man  at  all,  nor  what  inner  relation 
that  individual's  happiness  is  to  have  to  the  happi- 
ness of  other  men.  All  men,  in  the  ideal  state,  are 
to  be  harmonious  and  happy  together  :  this  the  he- 
donist tells  us  ;  but  he  does  not  see  how  many  dif- 
ficulties are  involved  in  the  definition  of  this  ideal 
state.  He  plainly  means  and  says  that  in  this  ideal 
state  the  good  of  the  whole  society  is  to  be  an  aggre- 
gate of  a  great  number  of  individual  happy  states, 
which  the  various  men  of  the  blessed  society  are  to 
feel.  He  assumes  then  that  in  the  ideal  state  each 


THE   ORGANIZATION   OF   LIFE.  185 

man  would  be  able  to  say  :  "  I,  separately  regarded, 
am  happy,  and  so  are  all  my  fellows."  Now  pos- 
sibly the  very  notion  of  an  ideal  state,  in  which  the 
separate  selves  are  as  such  happy,  and  in  which 
the  blessedness  of  the  whole  is  an  aggregate  of  the 
blessedness  of  the  separate  individuals,  is  a  contra- 
dictory notion.  At  all  events  it  is  a  notion  whose 
meaning  and  validity  every  hedonist  coolly  and  un- 
questioningly  assumes.  Yet  it  is  an  assumption  that 
we  must  examine  with  care. 

If  a  man  sets  before  himself  and  his  fellows  the 
goal  of  individual  happiness,  as  the  hedonist  wants 
him  to  do  in  the  supposed  ideal  state,  can  he  con- 
ceivably attain  that  goal?  The  hedonist  supposes 
that  the  only  moral  limitation  to  the  pursuit  of  per- 
sonal happiness  is  the  moral  requirement  of  altru- 
ism, according  to  which  no  one  ought  to  seek  his 
own  pleasure  at  the  cost  of  a  greater  misery  to  an- 
other. In  the  ideal  state,  as  all  would  be  in  the 
moral  mood,  and  all  disposed  to  help  one  another, 
and  to  get  happiness  only  together,  this  one  limita- 
tion would  be  removed.  Then,  thinks  the  hedonist, 
the  highest  law  would  be  :  Get  the  most  happiness, 
all  of  you.  This  happiness  the  hedonist  conceives  as 
an  aggregate  of  states  that  would  exist  in  the  various 
separate  individuals.  So  each  individual  will  strive 
after  his  own  joy,  but  in  such  wise  as  to  hinder  the 
joy  of  nobody  else.  But  we  oppose  to  this  the  ques- 
tion :  Is  there  not  some  other  limitation  than  this  to 
individual  search  for  happiness  ?  Is  not  the  ideal 
of  individual  happiness  as  such  an  impossible  ideal, 
not  because  the  individuals  in  the  imperfect  state 


186         THE   RELIGIOUS   ASPECT   OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

lack  harmony,  but  because,  even  in  the  supposed  har- 
monious state,  there  would  be  an  inner  hindrance  to 
the  pursuit  of  this  ideal  by  any  individual  ?  Would 
not  the  moral  insight  detect  the  hindrance,  and  so  re- 
ject this  ideal  ?  There  are  at  least  some  very  famil- 
iar reasons  for  thinking  this  to  be  the  case.  These 
reasons  do  not  of  themselves  prove,  but  they  certainly 
suggest,  that  the  notion  of  a  progressive  individual 
happiness  has  in  it  some  strange  contradiction. 

First,  then,  we  have  the  old  empirical  truth  that 
individual  happiness  is  never  very  nearly  approached 
by  any  one,  so  long  as  he  is  thinking  about  it.  The 
happy  man  ought  to  be  able  to  say,  "  I  am  happy." 
He  can  much  more  easily  say,  "  I  was  happy ; "  for 
present  reflection  upon  happiness  interferes  in  most 
cases  with  happiness.  So  here  is  an  inner  difficulty, 
very  well  known,  in  the  way  of  making  individual 
happiness  the  goal  of  life.  We  have  no  desire  to 
dwell  here  upon  this  difficulty,  which  has  so  often 
been  discussed.  We  do  not  exaggerate  its  impor- 
tance. We  consider  it  only  the  first  suggestion  that 
the  hedonistic  ideal  of  life  has  some  inner  contradic- 
tion in  its  very  nature,  so  that  there  is  some  deeper 
conflict  here  going  on  than  that  between  selfishness 
and  altruism. 

In  the  second  place,  we  notice  that,  if  anybody 
tries  to  sketch  for  us  the  ideal  state  of  human  life 
as  the  hedonist  conceives  it,  we  aje  struck  with  a 
sense  of  the  tameness  and  insignificance  of  the  whole 
picture.  The  result  is  strange.  Here  we  have  been 
making  peace  and  harmony  among  men  the  proxi- 
mate goal  of  life,  yet  when  this  harmony  has  to  be 


THE   ORGANIZATION   OF   LIFE.  187 

conceived  in  hedonistic  fashion,  when  the  hedonist 
gives  us  his  picture  of  a  peaceful  society,  where,  in 
the  midst  of  universal  good  humor,  his  ideal,  the  hap- 
piness of  everybody  concerned,  is  steadfastly  pursued, 
we  find  ourselves  disappointed  and  contemptuous. 
That  harmless  company  of  jolly  good  fellows  is  un- 
speakably dull.  One  listens  to  the  account  of  their 
happiness  as  one  might  listen  to  the  laughter  and 
merry  voices  of  some  evening  club  of  jovial  strangers, 
who  had  been  dining  at  the  hotel  in  which  one  hap- 
pened himself  to  be  eating  a  late  and  frugal  supper, 
in  sobriety  and  weariness.  Those  unknown  crea- 
tures whose  chatter  in  the  next  room  the  traveler 
dimly  hears  at  such  a  time,  —  a  confused  babble  of 
stupid  noises  ;  how  insignificant  their  joys  seem  to 
him  !  Who  cares  whether  that  really  wretched  set 
of  animals  yonder,  with  their  full  stomachs  and  their 
misty  brains,  think  themselves  happy  or  not  ?  To  be 
sure,  among  them  the  harmony  seems  in  some  sort 
to  have  been  momentarily  realized.  One  would  no 
doubt  seem  to  enjoy  it  all  just  as  well  as  they,  if  he 
were  one  of  them.  But  one  is  viewing  it  at  a  dis- 
tance, from  outside ;  and  so  looking  at  it  he  possibly 
sees  that  a  mass  of  individual  happiness  is  not  just 
the  ideal  of  ideals  after  all. 

Just  such,  however,  is  the  feeling  that  comes  to  one 
in  considering  Mr.  Spencer's  description  of  his  ideal 
society.  And  similar  feelings  have  been  awakened 
in  many  reflective  people  when  they  have  considered 
traditional  notions  of  heaven,  and  have  tried  to  esti- 
mate the  value  of  the  life  of  individual  bliss  therein 
pictured.  Professor  William  James  has  recently  so 


188         THE   RELIGIOUS   ASPECT    OF   PHILOSOPHY. 

well  stated  these  objections  in  a  few  brilliant  sen- 
tences, that  we  cannot  do  better  than  to  quote  from 
his  recent  article  on  "  The  Dilemma  of  Determin- 
ism "  :  !  — 

"  Every  one  must  at  some  time  have  wondered  at  that 
strange  paradox  of  our  moral  nature,  that,  though  the 
pursuit  of  outward  good  is  the  breath  of  its  nostrils,  the 
attainment  of  outward  good  would  seem  to  be  its  suffoca- 
tion and  death.  Why  does  the  painting  of  any  paradise 
or  Utopia,  in  heaven  or  on  earth,  awaken  such  yawnings 
for  Nirvana  and  escape  ?  The  white-robed,  harp-playing 
heaven  of  our  Sabbath-schools,  and  the  ladylike  tea-table 
elysium  represented  in  Mr.  Spencer's  6  Data  of  Ethics,'  as 
the  final  consummation  of  progress,  are  exactly  on  a  par 
in  this  respect,  — lubberlands,  pure  and  simple,  one  and 
all.  We  look  upon  them  from  this  delicious  mess  of  in- 
sanities and  realities,  strivings  and  deadnesses,  hopes  and 
fears,  and  agonies  and  exultations,  which  form  our  pres- 
ent state ;  and  tedium  vitce  is  the  only  sentiment  they 
awaken  in  our  breasts.  To  our  crepuscular  natures,  born 
for  the  conflict,  the  Rembrandtesque  moral  chiaroscuro, 
the  shifting  struggle  of  the  sunbeam  in  the  gloom,  such 
pictures  of  light  upon  light  are  vacuous  and  expression- 
less, and  neither  to  be  enjoyed  nor  understood.  If  this 
be  the  whole  fruit  of  the  victory,  we  say;  if  the  genera- 
tions of  mankind  suffered  and  laid  down  their  lives ;  if 
prophets  confessed  and  martyrs  sang  in  the  fire,  and  all 
the  sacred  tears  were  shed  for  no  other  end  than  that  a 
race  of  creatures  of  such  unexampled  insipidity  should  suc- 
ceed, and  protract  in  scecula  sceculorum  their  contented 
and  inoffensive  lives,  —  why,  at  such  a  rate,  better  lose 
than  win  the  battle,  or  at  all  events  better  ring  down  the 
curtain  before  the  last  act  of  the  play,  so  that  a  business 
1  Unitarian  Review  for  September,  1884. 


THE  ORGANIZATION   OF   LIFE.  189 

that  began  so  importantly  may  be  saved  from  so  singu- 
larly flat  a  winding-up." 

Now  not  only  does  all  this  seem  true  in  such  cases, 
but  we  have  similar  feelings  about  even  so  ideal  a 
picture  of  happy  future  life  as  is  Shelley's,  in  the  last 
act  of  the  "  Prometheus."  There  are  indeed  many 
deeper  elements  in  that  noble  ideal  of  Shelley's,  for 
he  distinctly  says  that  his  true  ideal  is  "  Man  —  Oh  ! 
not  men  "  ;  or,  as  he  again  expresses  it :  — 

"  One  undivided  soul  of  many  a  soul 
Whose  nature  is  its  own  divine  control, 
Where  all  things  flow  to  all,  as  rivers  to  the  sea." 

And  when  he  says  this,  he  gets  far  beyond  mere  he- 
donism. But  yet  there  are  other  elements  in  his 
account  that  are  not  so  satisfactory,  and  that  are 
decidedly  hedonistic.  Their  expression  is  indeed 
perfect.  Surely  if  the  noblest  hedonism  could  ever 
succeed  with  us  through  the  noblest  of  statements^ 
such  an  advocate  as  Shelley  would  convince  us.  But 
when  the  poet  glorifies  mere  individual  pleasure,  as 
he  does  in  part  of  his  picture,  our  clearest  reflection 
is  that,  after  all,  the  end  of  the  tragedy  is  petty  when 
compared  with  the  beginning. 

For  consider  what  a  world  it  is  in  which  we  begin 
the  poem.  At  first  glance  it  is  a  gloomy  and  terri- 
ble world  of  brutal  wrong.  But  soon  the  picture 
grows  brighter,  even  while  the  wrong  is  depicted. 
There  is  the  glorious  figure  of  the  suffering  Titan, 
there  is  the  sweetness  of  the  tender  love  that  watches 
him  ;  and  above  the  tyrant  himself  one  feels  that 
there  is  somehow  a  heavenly  might,  that  does  not 
suffer  him  to  do  his  worst.  The  world  in  which 


190         THE  RELIGIOUS  ASPECT   OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

these  things  live  is  not  intolerable.  But  then  come 
the  spirits  that  sing  to  Prometheus,  in  his  anguish, 
of  immortal  deeds  done  on  the  earth,  of  great 
thoughts  and  lofty  passions.  All  these  are  born  of 
the  conflict,  and  have  their  being  in  the  midst  of  the 
terrors  of  the  tyrant's  dominion.  It  is  indeed  no 
perfect  world,  this ;  and  one  needs  some  higher 
light,  such  as  Prometheus  has,  to  prophesy  that  the 
good  will  ever  triumph  ;  but  one  sees  forthwith  that 
from  the  perfect  world,  if  it  ever  comes,  these  great 
strivings  for  good,  this  sublime  devotion  and  love 
and  heroism,  must  not  wholly  vanish.'  These  things 
must  not  be  laid  aside  like  old  garments  whenever 
Prometheus  wins  and  is  free  ;  their  spirit  must  be 
preserved  as  an  element  in  the  higher  life  of  the 
future.  If  they  are  worth  anything,  their  true  na- 
ture must  be  eternal. 

And  as  for  the  real  worth  of  this  world  in  which 
the  evil  is  so  far  triumphant  —  we  learn  something 
of  that  from  Demogorgon.  This  mysterious  being 
has  indeed  no  very  definite  religious  philosophy  to 
offer.  He  meets  plain  questions  with  vague  an- 
swers, when  Asia  and  Panthea  catechise  him  ;  and 
one  feels  it  to  be  well  for  his  reputation  as  a  pro- 
found teacher  that  his  questioners  are  neither  men 
nor  Socratic  inquirers.  But  still  what  he  tells  of  the 
deep  truth  that  is  "  imageless,"  is  enough  to  make 
us  feel  that  even  this  world  of  horrors  is  not  without 
a  divine  significance.  Jove  reigns,  but,  whatever  the 
visible  world  may  be,  the  truth  of  things  is  a  world  of 
hope  and  love,  where  the  real  God  is  somehow  above 
all  and  through  all,  a  Spirit  of  Eternal  Goodness. 


THE   ORGANIZATION   OF  LIFE.  191 

To  have  found  this  out  in  the  midst  of  all  the  evil 
is  surely  not  to  have  found  life  wholly  vain. 

But  then  what  happens  ?  By  the  accident  that, 
according  to  Shelley,  rules  the  world,  the  revolution 
is  accomplished,  and  Zeus  is  hurled  headlong  into  the 
abyss.  What  glorious  life  shall  now  begin  ?  When 
the  deep  and  magnificent  truth  that  was  felt  to  be  be- 
neath all  the  horror  of  the  tyrant's  reign,  comes  out 
into  full  light,  what  tongue  shall  be  able  to  sing  the 
glories  of  that  beatific  vision  ?  We  listen  eagerly  — 
and  we  are  disappointed.  Prometheus  arises  grandly 
from  his  bed  of  torture,  and  then  —  he  forthwith 
bethinks  himself  of  a  very  pretty  cave,  where  one 
might  be  content  to  rest  a  long  time  in  the  refined 
company  of  agreeable  women.  There  one  will  lie, 
and  wreathe  flowers,  and  tell  tales,  and  sing  songs, 
and  laugh  and  weep  ;  and  the  hours  will  fly  swiftly 
by.  And  then  what  will  become  of  the  rest  of  the 
world  ?  Oh,  this  world  simply  becomes  a  theatre  of 
like  individual  enjoyments.  Everybody  to  his  cave 
and  his  flowers  and  his  agreeable  companions.  And 
that  will  then  be  all.  No  organization ;  just  good 
fellowship  and  fragmentary  amusements. 

No,  that  cannot  be  all.  Shelley  felt  as  much, 
and  added  the  last  act  of  the  play.  There  we  are 
to  have  depicted  grandly  and  vaguely  the  life  of  or- 
ganized love.  The  world  shall  be  all  alive,  and  the 
universal  life  shall  join  in  the  hymn  of  praise.  All 
the  powers  of  reality  shall  feel  the  new  impulse  of 
perfect  harmony,  and  what  shall  spring  from  their 
union  shall  be  some  higher  kind  of  existence,  in 
which  there  is  no  longer  to  be  any  talk  of  thine  and 


192         THE   RELIGIOUS   ASPECT   OF   PHILOSOPHY. 

mine  ;  but  the  "  one  undivided  soul  of  many  a  soul," 
"  where  all  things  flow  to  all,  as  rivers  to  the  sea," 
shall  enter  upon  a  life  of  transcendent  significance, 
upon  a  task  of  eternal  duration,  and  of  a  meaning 
too  high  for  us  poor  mortals  of  this  present  world 
well  to  comprehend.  But  this  is  no  longer  pure 
hedonism,  although  the  verses  hereabouts  are  so  full 
of  the  joyous  outbursts  and  of  the  anticipations  of 
rapture.  In  fine,  the  outcome  is  no  perfect  and  har- 
monious conception  at  all.  We  find  the  joy  of  the 
freed  and  loving,  yet  still  separate  selves,  and  the 
higher  life  of  the  all-pervading  universal  spirit,  both 
alike  glorified ;  and  we  never  get  from  the  poet  any 
clearness  about  their  actual  relation.  Is  the  world 
blessed  just  because  the  tyrant  no  longer  interferes 
with  each  man's  flower-wreathing  and  other  amuse- 
ments ?  Or  is  the  sole  source  of  bliss  the  disposi- 
tion of  everybody  to  give  everybody  else  everything  ? 
Or  is  the  real  source  of  the  perfection  this  :  that 
these  souls,  no  longer  oppressed  by  hatred,  have  at 
last  come  to  feel  not  only  their  freedom,  but  also 
some  higher  aim  of  universal  life  ?  Shelley  hints, 
but  does  not  consistently  make  us  feel,  what  his  real 
result  is.  There  was  in  fact  always  about  Shelley 
that  childish  innocence  of  benevolent  hope,  to  which 
the  only  evil  seemed  to  be  the  hatred  of  men  for  one 
another,  and  the  highest  good  the  outburst  of  uni- 
versal kindliness.  Now  that  is  the  beginning  of 
moral  insight,  but  cannot  be  all  of  it.  As  if  the  be- 
nevolence would  not  turn  out  to  be  utter  emptiness, 
unless  there  is  something  beyond  it !  As  if  there 
could  be  any  value  in  this  unity  of  life,  unless  there 


THE   ORGANIZATION   OF   LIFE.  193 

is  something  to  be  done  by  the  one  life  after  it  is 
united  !  As  if  the  moral  insight  must  not  reveal 
some  deeper  truth  than  can  be  seen  in  its  first  mo- 
ments ! 

One  expects  what  we  are  coming  to.  In  discuss- 
ing this  problem  of  Shelley's  we  are  reaching  the 
sense  that  the  moral  insight  must  be  yet  further 
completed,  or  else  it  will  be  all  in  vain.  The  moral 
insight  says  to  us  all :  Act  as  one  being.  We  must 
come  to  that  point ;  but  we  must  also  go  beyond. 
We  must  ask :  What  is  this  one  being  to  do,  after 
the  insight  has  made  all  the  individuals  of  one  will  ? 
And  we  already  begin  to  see,  in  opposition  to  hedon- 
ism, that  it  cannot  be  the  end  of  this  universal  will 
simply  to  make  of  us  so  and  so  many  new  separate 
individuals  once  more.  The  mass  of  tediously  happy 
selves  seems  insipid  to  our  common  sense,  just  be- 
cause we  all  dimly  feel  the  truth  that  we  must  now 
come  to  understand  better,  namely,  that  the  univer- 
sal will  of  the  moral  insight  must  aim  at  the  de- 
struction of  all  which  separates  us  into  a  heap  of 
different  selves,  and  at  the  attainment  of  some  higher 
positive  organic  aim.  The  "one  undivided  soul" 
we  are  bound  to  make  our  ideal.  And  the  ideal  of 
that  soul  cannot  be  the  separate  happiness  of  you 
and  of  me,  nor  the  negative  fact  of  our  freedom 
from  hatred,  but  must  be  something  above  us  all, 
and  yet  very  positive. 

Had  we  deduced  our  principle  in  any  other  way 
than  the  one  we  chose,  we  should  be  unable  to  take 
this,  our  present  necessary  step  forwards.  The  feel- 
ing of  sympathy,  for  instance,  is  concerned  with  the 
13 


194         THE  RELIGIOUS  ASPECT   OF   PHILOSOPHY. 

individual  object  of  our  sympathy.  To  sympathize 
with  all  men  is  to  wish  everybody  happy,  each  after 
his  own  fashion.  But  we  rejected  that  emotional 
sympathy  as  such.  We  said  :  The  facts  of  life  show 
us  a  conflict  of  wills.  To  realize  this  conflict  is  to 
see  that  no  will  is  more  justified  in  its  separateness 
than  is  any  other.  This  realization  is  ethical  skep- 
ticism, a  necessary  stage  on  the  way  to  the  true 
moral  insight.  The  ethical  doubt  means  and  is  the 
realization  of  the  conflict.  But  this  realization 
means,  as  we  see  on  reflection,  a  real  will  in  us  that 
unites  these  realized  wills  in  one,  and  demands  the 
end  of  their  conflict.  This  is  our  realization  of  an 
Universal  Will.  The  rest  of  our  doctrine  must  be 
the  development  of  the  nature  of  the  universal  will. 
This  will  first  says  to  each  of  the  individual  wills  : 
"  Submit  thyself  to  me."  Or  otherwise  put,  let 
each  will  be  so  acted  out  as  if  by  One  Being  who 
combined  in  himself  all  the  other  wills.  Hence  the 
universal  will  must  demand,  not  the  indefinitely  con- 
ceived or  dimly  and  sentimentally  desired  separate 
satisfaction  of  everybody,  but  an  organic  union  of 
life  ;  such  an  union  as  this  our  world  would  try  to 
make  of  itself  if  it  were  already  in  empirical  fact 
what  the  universal  will  demands  it  to  be,  namely, 
one  Self.  This  one  Self,  however,  could  no  longer 
will  to  cut  itself  up  again  into  the  separate  empir- 
ical selves,  any  more  than  it  could  in  any  narrow, 
priggish  fashion  set  itself  up  for  a  new  specimen  of 
a  lofty  individual,  to  be  obeyed  as  an  arbitrary  law- 
giver. It  would  demand  all  the  wealth  of  life  that 
the  separate  selves  now  have ;  and  all  the  unity  that 


THE   ORGANIZATION   OF   LIFE.  195 

any  one  individual  now  seeks  for  himself.  It  would 
aim  at  the  fullest  and  most  organized  life  conceiv- 
able. And  this  its  aim  would  become  no  longer 
merely  a  negative  seeking  for  harmony,  but  a  posi- 
tive aim,  demanding  the  perfect  Organization  of 
Life. 

III. 

But  the  postulate  of  all  hedonism,  utilitarian  or 
other,  this  postulate  of  the  absolute  worth  of  indi- 
vidual satisfaction,  finds  its  practical  refutation  for 
every  growing  character  in  yet  another  form.  Every- 
body has  tried  to  realize  the  ideal  of  individualism, 
this  ideal  of  a  happy  or  satisfied  self,  either  for  him- 
self or  for  some  loved  one  ;  and  everybody  finds,  if 
he  tries  the  thing  long  enough,  what  a  hollow  and 
worthless  business  it  all  is.  If  there  is,  or  is  possible 
anywhere,  a  really  satisfied  self,  it  certainly  has  no 
place  in  any  fleshly  body  ;  and  the  reason  is  not 
alone  what  disappointed  people  call  the  "  disagree- 
able order  of  things  in  this  wicked  world,"  but  the 
inner  contradictions  of  this  notion  of  a  perfected  hu- 
man self.  Let  us  remind  ourselves  of  some  of  these 
contradictions. 

Hedonism  has  no  meaning,  unless  the  satisfied  hu- 
man self  is  logically  possible.  The  ideal  of  hedon- 
ism, with  all  its  vagueness,  has  at  least  one  essential 
element,  in  that  it  demands  the  satisfaction  of  hu- 
man selves  by  the  free  supply  of  all  that  they  desire 
for  themselves.  Hedonism  therefore  must  and  does 
assert  that  what  a  man  desires  is  his  own  content- 
ment ;  so  that,  if  you  could,  physically  speaking, 


196         THE   RELIGIOUS   ASPECT    OF   PHILOSOPHY. 

give  him  all  that  he  asks  for  himself,  you  would  have 
reached  the  goal  for  him.  But  now,  if  all  this  is  a 
delusion,  if  in  fact  a  man  does  not  really  want  his 
own  satisfaction  alone,  but  does  actually  want  some- 
thing more,  that  is  not  his  individual  satisfaction,  and 
that  is  not  to  be  attained  through  his  satisfaction, 
then  the  hedonistic  ideal  does  not  express  the  truth 
of  life.  And  this  paradoxical  experience  we  all  get, 
sooner  or  later.  We  find  that  our  little  self  does 
desire  something  that,  if  gained,  would  be  not  its 
own  satisfaction  at  all,  but  its  own  destruction  in  its 
separate  life  as  this  self.  So  the  aim  of  life  cannot 
be  ultimately  hedonistic.  For,  if  possessed  of  the 
moral  insight,  we  cannot  will  that  each  self  should 
get  the  greatest  possible  aggregate  of  separate  satis- 
factions, when  in  truth  no  one  of  the  selves  seeks 
merely  an  aggregate  of  self -satisfactions  as  such,  but 
when  each  does  seek  something  else  that  is  unattain- 
able in  the  form  of  separate  self -satisfaction. 

But  possibly  a  reader  may  incredulously  demand 
where  the  proof  is  of  this  self-contradictory  desire 
that  all  the  selves  are  declared  to  have.  The  proof 
lies  in  the  general  fact  that  to  be  fully  conscious  of 
one's  own  individual  life  as  such  is  to  be  conscious 
of  a  distressing  limitation.  This  limitation  every  one 
very  shrewdly  notices  for  the  first  in  other  people. 
The  knowledge  of  it  expresses  itself  in  personal  crit- 
icism. One  first  puts  the  matter  very  naively  thus, 
that,  whereas  the  rule  of  life  for  one's  own  person  is 
simply  to  get  all  the  satisfaction  that  one  can,  the 
appearance  of  anybody  else  who  pretends  to  be  con- 
tent with  Airaself  must  be  the  signal  not  for  admira- 


THE   ORGANIZATION   OF  LIFE.  197 

tion  at  the  sight  of  his  success,  but  for  a  good  deal 
of  contempt.  One  sees  at  once  that  he  is  a  person 
of  serious  limitations.  One  sees  and  feels  perfections 
that  the  other  has  not.  One  despises  then  the  other 
man's  complacency,  because  it  is  so  plainly  founded 
in  illusion.  '*  If  he  could  only  see  himself  as  others 
see  him,"  one  says,  "  he  could  not  be  self-satisfied." 
Criticism  thus  seems  to  indicate  why  he  ought  to  be 
discontented,  and  why  he  would,  if  he  knew  more, 
feel  a  contempt  for  himself.  All  such  criticism  is 
really  an  abandonment  of  the  hedonistic  principle. 
If  an  individual  ought  to  be  dissatisfied,  although  he 
is  actually  satisfied,  and  if  he  ought  to  be  dissatisfied^^ 
merely  because  he  has  not  some  perfection  that  ex- 
ists in  somebody  else,  then  the  doctrine  that  a  self 
reaches  its  goal  in  so  far  as  it  reaches  inner  content- 
ment is  given  up.  No  benevolent  hedonist  has  any 
business  to  criticise  a  happy  man  who  is  harming 
nobody  by  his  happiness.  He  is  at  the  goal,  or  ap- 
proximately so.  Let  him  alone.  To  do  otherwise, 
by  criticising  him,  is  a  crime. 

But  no  ;  every  one  feels  that  the  true  goal  is  not 
attained  for  this  man.  And  this  feeling,  though  in 
itself  as  feeling  it  proves  nothing,  is  the  first  sug- 
gestion to  many  of  some  deeper  truth.  This  truth, 
however,  enters  like  iron  into  his  soul,  when  some- 
body else  ably  and  justly  and  severely  criticises  him 
in  his  turn.  Here,  for  example,  I  have  been  for  a 
time  content  with  myself,  and  have  been  saying  to 
my  soul :  "  Soul,  take  thy  ease,"  and  here  comes  one 
who  says  to  me,  very  justly,  "  Thou  fool,"  and  points 
out  some  great  lack  in  my  conduct,  or  in  my  charao 


198         THE   RELIGIOUS   ASPECT   OF   PHILOSOPHY. 

ter,  or  in  my  knowledge.  And  now  I  have  a  strange 
experience  of  conflicting  passions.  This  critic  has 
caused  me  a  sharp  pang.  Perhaps  I  hate  him  for  it ; 
but  then,  when  I  go  away  and  think  the  matter  over, 
I  see  that  as  to  the  fact,  he  is  right.  This  great  lim- 
itation does  actually  exist  for  me,  and  perhaps  I  can- 
not remove  it ;  so  I  can  but  suffer  from  the  sense  of 
it.  I  was  innocent  and  ignorant  before,  and  there- 
fore happy.  If  the  critic  had  not  showed  me  to 
myself,  I  should  have  kept  this  bliss.  But  it  is  in 
vain  now  to  think  of  returning  to  that  innocence.  I 
am  indeed  a  wretch  and  a  fool ;  and  how  shall  I 
escape  myself  ?  Alas  for  my  lost  pleasure  in  con- 
templating my  fancied  perfection  ! 

But  no  :  cannot  I  in  fact  return  to  that  ignorance, 
and  to  the  blissful  illusion  of  my  own  worth  once 
more  ?  Surely  I  can  if  I  but  try  awhile.  To  flatter 
myself,  to  curse  the  critic,  to  talk  of  his  jealousy  and 
of  his  blindness :  surely  this  will  bring  me  back  to 
my  ignorance  again  in  time.  He  will  be  forgotten, 
and  I  contented.  But  once  more,  my  enlightened 
self  revolts  from  this  lie.  The  defect  is  real,  and  I 
know  it.  Would  my  ignorance  make  it  less  real  ? 
To  have  this  defect  and  to  suffer  from  it  is  bad 
enough ;  but  with  horror  do  I  now  contemplate  the 
state  of  going  on  forever  with  this  defect,  but  still 
ignorant  of  it  and  so  not  suffering  from  it.  My  old 
innocence  seems  really  pitiful.  It  actually  adds  much 
to  my  present  pang  of  chagrin,  that  I  previously 
ought  to  have  felt  the  chagrin,  and  yet  had  it  not. 
I  tremble  when  I  reflect  how,  amid  all  that  selfish 
complacency,  I  really  was  a  fool  the  whole  time,  and 


THE   ORGANIZATION   OF  LIFE.  199 

appeared  so  to  discerning  people,  and  yet  knew  it 
not.  And  therefore  now,  through  all  the  pang  of 
the  discovery,  runs  the  feeling  that  I  would  not  if  I 
could,  no,  not  for  any  delight  of  complacency,  return 
to  that  state  of  hollow,  delicious,  detestable  igno- 
rance. It  was  a  fool's  paradise  ;  but  I  have  escaped 
from  it.  I  know  my  nakedness,  and  I  prefer  the  fruit 
of  the  tree  of  knowledge,  with  bitter  exile,  to  the 
whole  of  the  delights  of  that  wretched  place.  It  is 
a  contradictory  state,  this.  My  knowledge  is  torture 
to  my  foolish,  sensitive  self ;  yet  while  I  writhe  with 
the  vainest  of  pangs,  I  despise  utterly  the  thought 
of  escaping  it  by  illusion,  or  by  forgetfulness,  or  by 
any  means  save  the  actual  removal  or  conquest  of 
the  defect.  And  this  I  feel  even  when  the  defect  is 
seen  to  be  utterly  irremovable  without  the  destruc- 
tion of  myself.  Better  go  on  despising  myself,  and 
feeling  the  contempt  of  others,  than  return  to  the 
delights  of  foolishness  ;  or,  if  the  pain  of  knowing 
what  I  am  is  insupportable,  then  it  were  better 
to  die,  than  to  live  in  despicable  ignorance.  Oh, 
wretched  man  that  I  am  !  Who  shall  deliver  me  ? 

Is  all  this  mere  emotion?  or  is  it  insight?  In 
fact  it  is  a  growing,  though  still  imperfect  insight, 
a  form  of  the  moral  insight.  The  pangs  of  this 
wounded  self-love  are  themselves  in  truth  also  van- 
ity, like  the  complacent  self-love  that  they  mourn  ; 
but  only  through  the  gateway  of  this  pain  can  most 
people  get  beyond  these  vanities  of  individualism. 
For  this  wounded  self-love,  that  refuses  to  be  com- 
forted by  any  deliberate  return  to  its  old  illusions, 
is,  as  Adam  Smith  long  since  pointed  out,  an  emo- 


200         THE   RELIGIOUS   ASPECT    OF   PHILOSOPHY. 

tional  expression  of  the  result  of  putting  ourselves 
at  the  point  of  view  of  our  critics.  We  see  our 
limitations  as  they  see  them.  Our  will  conforms 
itself,  therefore,  to  their  contemptuous  will  concern- 
ing us,  because  we  realize  the  existence  of  that  will. 
In  recognizing  and  sharing  their  contempt,  we  there- 
fore realize  in  part  the  universal  will  that  must  con- 
demn all  individual  limitations  as  such.  We  prac- 
tically experience  the  truth  that  a  perfectly  fair  judge 
of  us  all  would  not  be  satisfied  merely  with  our  indi- 
vidual contentments  as  such,  but  would  also  demand 
the  destruction  of  all  our  individual  limitations.  We 
thus  get  practically  far  beyond  hedonism.  We  see 
that  as  we  are  weak  and  wretched  in  the  eyes  of  one 
another,  we  should  all  be  far  more  so  in  the  eyes  of 
a  god  Our  ideal  of  life  must  then  be  the  notion  of 
a  life  where  no  one  being  could  fairly  criticise  any 
other  at  all.  But  such  a  life  would  be  no  longer  a 
life  of  separate  individuals,  each  limited  to  his  petty 
sphere  of  work.  It  would  be  a  life  in  which  self  was 
lost  in  a  higher  unity  of  all  the  conscious  selves. 

Singular  may  appear  this  conception  even  now, 
after  all  that  we  have  said ;  but  it  is  a  practical  con- 
ception in  our  every-day  human  life.  That  we  criti- 
cise the  limitations  of  others,  and  desire  them  to  sac- 
rifice their  pleasures  for  the  sake  of  removing  these 
limitations,  may  be  regarded  at  first  as  our  cruel  ca- 
price, if  you  will  so  regard  it.  But  when  the  edge 
of  the  sword  is  turned  against  us,  when  we,  feeling 
the  bitterness  of  criticism  and  seeing  our  limitations, 
long  to  be  beyond  them,  hate  ourselves  for  them,  and 
yet  refuse  to  escape  from  the  pain  of  all  this  by 


THE  ORGANIZATION  OF  LIFE.  201 

forgetfulness  of  the  defect,  we  pass  from  capricious 
criticism  to  something  higher.  We  accept  with  ag- 
ony the  point  of  view  of  the  one  who  stands  outside 
of  us.  And,  so  doing,  we  pass  in  effect  to  the  accep- 
tance of  the  demands  of  the  universal  will.  If  there 
were  a  will  that  included  in  one  consciousness  all  our 
separate  wills,  it  could  not  will  our  individual  de- 
fects as  such.  It  would  be  absolute  critic,  as  well 
as  absolute  harmonizer,  of  all  of  us.  It  would  tear 
down  these  individual  barriers  of  our  petty  lives, 
as  the  corporation  of  a  great  city  may  tear  down 
wretched  old  rookeries.  It  would  demand  that  we 
be  one  in  spirit,  and  that  our  oneness  be  perfect. 
But  if  we  experience  this  universal  will,  we  experi- 
ence that  hedonism,  whose  life-blood  is  the  insistence 
upon  individual  states  as  such,  cannot  be  upheld  by 
the  moral  insight,  either  now,  or  at  any  future  stage 
of  our  human  life  on  this  earth.  We  perceive  too 
that  we  all  have  a  deep  desire  for  self-destruction,  in 
so  far  as  we  recognize  that  our  self-love  means  ab- 
sence of  perfection. 

IV. 

We  have  seen  in  general  the  moral  outcome  of  in- 
dividualism. Let  us  study  some  of  its  forms  and  for- 
tunes more  in  detail.  Individualism,  viewed  as  the 
tendency  to  hold  that  the  ideal  of  life  is  the  separate 
happy  man,  is  itself  very  naturally  the  normal  ten- 
dency of  unreflecting  strong  natures,  to  whom  happi- 
ness has  been  in  a  fair  human  measure  already  given. 
Children  and  child-like  men,  full  of  vigor,  are  inno- 
cently selfish  ;  or,  when  they  act  unselfishly,  their 


202         THE   RELIGIOUS   ASPECT    OF   PHILOSOPHY. 

whole  ideal  is  the  making  of  others  like  themselves. 
They  fall  into  a  notion  about  life  that  the  author 
not  long  since  heard  well-expressed  by  a  cheerful 
young  friend,  a  former  fellow-student,  who,  having 
early  plunged  into  a  busy  life,  has  already  won  both 
influence  and  property.  This  man,  full  of  the  enthu- 
siasm of  first  success,  was  talking  over  his  life  with 
the  writer,  and  fell  to  defining  his  opinions  on  vari- 
ous subjects,  such  as  young  men  like  to  discuss.  At 
last  he  was  asked  about  the  view  of  life  that  he  had 
already  formed  in  his  little  experience.  He  was 
quick,  honest,  and  definite  in  his  answer,  as  he  al- 
ways has  been.  "  My  notion  of  a  good  life  is,"  he 
said,  "  that  you  ought  to  help  your  friends  and  whack 
your  enemies."  The  notion  was  older  than  the 
speaker  remembered ;  for  Socratic  dialogues  on  the 
Just,  with  their  ingenious  Sophists  making  bold  as- 
sertions, form  no  part  of  his  present  stock  of  sub- 
jects for  contemplation.  But  what  was  interesting 
in  the  fresh  and  frank  manner  of  the  speech  was 
the  clearness  of  the  conviction  that  a  world  of  suc- 
cessful and  friendly  selves,  whose  enemies  chanced 
to  be  all  recently  "  whacked,"  would  be  at  the  goal 
of  bliss.  Such  indeed  is  and  must  be  the  individ- 
ualism of  the  successful  and  unreflecting  man,  by 
whom  all  the  world  is  classified  as  being  either  his 
or  not  his,  as  to  a  cow  all  is  either  cow  feed  or  not 
cow  feed.  A  man  in  this  position  has  never  yet 
known  the  burden  of  Faust's  soul  when  he  says, 
Cursed  be  what  as  possession  charms  us.  If  such 
a  man  gets  any  moral  insight,  it  will  be  on  this  stage 
imperfect.  He  will  seek  only  to  multiply  himself 


THE  ORGANIZATION   OF  LIFE.  203 

in  the  forms  of  other  men.  These  he  will  call  his 
friends.  That  in  which  he  does  not  recognize  him- 
self, he  will  "  whack." 

But  most  men  cannot  keep  this  form  of  the  illu- 
sion of  individualism.  They  pass  most  of  their  lives 
in  the  midst  of  disappointment.  The  self  cannot  get 
its  objects.  The  ideal  independence  is  hampered. 
The  stubborn  world  asserts  itself  against  us.  We 
feel  the  littleness  of  our  powers  and  of  our  plans. 
The  broken  and  despairing  self  has  to  seek  refuge 
elsewhere.  And  so  individualism  most  commonly 
assumes  another  shape.  In  inner  self-development 
we  seek  what  the  world  refuses  us  in  outer  self-reali- 
zation. Thoughts  at  least  are  free.  Our  emotions 
are  our  own.  The  world  does  not  understand  them  ; 
but  the  world  is  cold  and  unappreciative.  Let  us 
be  within  ourselves  what  we  cannot  get  in  the  outer 
world.  Let  us  be  inwardly  complete,  even  if  we  are 
outwardly  failures.  Then  we  shall  outwit  the  cruel 
world,  and  produce  the  successful  self,  in  spite  of 
misfortunes. 

The  reader  need  not  be  reminded  of  what  vast 
development  individualism  has  undergone  in  this  di- 
rection. Literature  is  full  of  accounts  of  struggles 
for  inward  self-realization,  made  by  men  whose  outer 
growth  is  impeded.  The  Hamlets  and  the  Fausts 
of  poetry,  the  saints  and  the  self-conscious  martyrs 
of  great  religious  movements,  are  familiar  examples. 
We  have  already  in  a  former  chapter  studied  the  out- 
come of  this  romantic  individualism  in  a  few  cases. 
There  is  no  time  to  dwell  here  afresh  at  any  length 
on  so  familiar  a  theme,  but  for  the  present  we  may 


204         THE   RELIGIOUS   ASPECT   OF   PHILOSOPHY. 

point  out  that  all  illustrations  of  the  tendency  fall 
into  two  classes,  representing  respectively  the  senti- 
mental and  the  heroic  individualism.  These  are  the 
forms  of  that  Nobler  Selfishness  which  benevolent 
hedonism  defends.  They  are  efforts  to  find  the  con- 
tented and  perfected  self.  Their  failure  is  the  fail- 
ure of  individualism,  and  therewith  of  hedonism. 

As  for  the  sentimental  individualism,  we  have  seen 
already  how  unstable  are  its  criteria  of  perfection, 
how  full  of  fickleness  is  its  life.  \£he  sentimental  self ' 
admits  that  the  world  cannot  understand  it,  and  will 
not  receive  it ;  but  it  insists  that  this  neglect  comes 
because  the  world  does  not  appreciate  the  strength 
and  beauty  of  the  inner  emotional  life.  The  ideal, 
then,  is  devotion  to  a  culture  of  the  beautiful  soul, 
and  to  a  separation  of  this  soul  from  all  other  life. 
Let  other  souls  be  saved  in  like  fashion.  One  does 
not  object  to  their  salvation  ;  but  one  insists  that 
each  saved  soul  dwells  apart  in  its  own  sensitive  feel- 
ings, in  the  world  of  higher  artistic  pleasures.  Now 
in  fact  such  lives  may  be  not  uninteresting  to  the 
moralist ;  but  no  moralist  can  be  really  content  with 
their  ideal.  Its  best  direct  refutation  is  after  all  a 
sense  of  humor  strong  enough  to  let  the  sensitive  and 
beautiful  soul  see  once  in  a  while  how  comical  is  its 
demure  pursuit  of  these  subjective  phantoms.  This 
miserable  life  of  deep  inward  excitements  and  long- 
ings, how  absurd  it  seems  to  any  critic  who,  standing 
outside,  sees  that  there  is  nothing  more  than  froth 
and  illusion  and  hypocrisy  in  it.  Heine's  anecdote 
of  the  monkey  boiling  his  own  tail  so  as  to  get  an 
inward  sense  of  the  nature  and  worth  of  the  art  of 


THE   ORGANIZATION  OF   LIFE.  205 

cookery,  is  what  first  comes  to  mind  when  we  see 
such  a  man  as  this  subjective  idealist  of  the  emo- 
tions. You  have  only  to  get  him  to  laugh  heartily 
once  or  twice,  and  his  Philistine  narrowness  can  no 
longer  content  «hini.  "Why  is  just  my  feeling  worth 
so  much?"  he  will  say.  And  then  he  will  wake  up 
to  observe  that  his  ideal  was  all  a  bad  dream  ;  and 
that  an  experience  has  no  more  or  less  worth  because 
it  happens  in  connection  with  the  decomposition  of 
his  particular  brain-stuff.  Faust  discovered  that,  as 
we  have  seen  ;  and  so  in  time  will  any  other  sensible 
man.  The  real  reason  after  all  why  Mephistophe- 
les  could  not  get  Faust's  soul  was  that  Faust  could 
understand  the  Mephistophelean  wit,  which  was 
throughout  destructive  of  individualism.  The  sen- 
timentalist wno  has  no  humor  is  once  for  all  given 
over  to  the  devil,  and  need  sign  no  contract.  He 
stares  into  every  mirror  that  he  passes,  and,  cursing 
the  luck  that  makes  him  move  so  fast  in  this  world, 
he  murmurs  incessantly,  Verweile  dock,  du  bist  so 
schon.  And  so  in  the  presence  of  the  moral  insight 
he  is  forthwith  and  eternally  damned,  unless  some 
miracle  of  grace  shall  save  him.  It  is  noteworthy 
that  one  or  two  of  our  recent  and  youngest  novelists 
in  this  country  have  gained  a  certain  reputation  by 
sentimental  stories  of  cpllegiate  and  post-graduate 
life  that  precisely  illustrate  this  simple-minded  but 
abominable  spirit.  May  these  young  authors  repent 
while  there  is  time,  if  indeed  they  can  repent. 

Less  dangerous  to  genuine  morality,  and  far 
higher  in  the  scale  of  worth,  is  the  Titanic  form  of 
individualism,  the  form  that  has  given  birth  to  such 


206         THE   RELIGIOUS   ASPECT    OF   PHILOSOPHY. 

expressions  as  the  Everlasting  No  of  "  Sartor  Resar- 
tus."  The  name  of  Prometheus  at  once  springs  to 
our  lips  when  we  think  of  this  view  of  life.  Pro- 
metheus is  so  fully  the  representative  of  Titanism, 
that  there  is  no  better  way  of  characterizing  its 
whole  spirit  than  to  call  it  the  Heresy  of  Prome- 
theus, the  finest  of  all  moral  heresies,  and  the  last. 

The  world  will  not  grant  you  outward  freedom,  and 
you  see  the  hollowness  of  that  inward  life  of  blessed 
emotions.  You  despise  it  in  others ;  you  see  that 
the  moral  insight  cannot  approve  such  a  form  of 
selfish  separation  in  you  or  in  them.  But  there  is 
another  form  of  self  -  development.  You  must  be 
something.  Why  not  be  heroic  ?  Possibly  the  ideal 
is  a  world  of  courageous  selves,  that  find  their  per- 
fection in  their  independence  of  action.  Prometheus 
gave  this  ideal  a  peculiar  emphasis  by  reason  of  the 
fact  that  he  had  a  Zeus  to  defy.  But  the  same  ideal, 
in  a  more  moderate  expression,  is  the  ideal  of  many 
a  quiet,  matter  of  fact  man,  who  has  little  happiness, 
but  much  spirit  and  energy,  who  is  too  busy  and  too 
healthy  to  be  sentimental,  who  knows  little  of  poetry, 
who  has  never  heard  the  name  of  Prometheus,  but 
who  knows  what  it  is  to  hold  his  own  in  the  fight 
with  the  world.  This  man  you  cannot  put  down  ; 
he  cares  little  for  the  opinions  of  others.  There  is 
no  judge  above  him  save  God  or  his  conscience.  He 
is  no  saint ;  but  he  is  at  least  an  admirable  fellow. 
He  belongs  to  the  race  of  Achilles ;  he  believes  in 
the  gospel  of  eternal  warfare  against  whatever  seems 
to  him  evil.  He  respects  others  ;  he  wants  to  do 
good  in  his  way.  But  he  thinks  that  the  best  good 


THE  ORGANIZATION   OF   LIFE.  207 

that  he  could  do  would  be  to  make  other  men  brave 
like  himself.  This  lonely,  active,  indomitable  self 
he  thinks  the  ideal  type  of  perfection.  For  him  the 
moral  insight  does  not  go  beyond  the  approval  of 
such  life  as  this,  indefinitely  multiplied. 

It  is  always  a  delight  to  follow  this  Titanism  in 
its  various  shapes.  Buddhism,  as  we  know,  is  a  re- 
ligion wholly  founded  on  self-denial,  and  it  counsels 
austere  self-extinction.  And  yet,  by  a  strange  freak 
of  moral  dialectics,  it  is  Buddhism  that  has  given 
us  some  of  the  best  expressions  of  the  Titanic  indi- 
vidualism. In  a  Buddhist  homily  in  the  Sutta  Ni- 
pata1  one  may  find  such  an  outburst  as  the  follow- 
ing, —  one  of  the  finest  of  the  confessions  of  the 
Titans  :  — 

"  Having  laid  aside  the  rod  against  all  beings,  and  not 
hurting  any  of  them,  let  no  one  wish  for  a  son,  much  less 
for  a  companion :  let  him  wander  alone  like  a  rhinoceros. 

"  In  him  who  has  intercourse  with  others,  affections 
arise,  and  then  the  pain  which  follows  affection  ;  consid- 
ering the  misery  that  originates  in  affection,  let  one  wan- 
der  alone  like  a  rhinoceros. 

"  He  who  has  compassion  on  his  friends  and  confiden- 
tial companions  loses  his  own  advantage,  having  a  fettered 
mind ;  seeing  this  danger  in  friendship,  let  one  wander 
alone  like  a  rhinoceros. 

"  Just  as  a  large  bamboo-tree,  with  its  branches  entan- 
gled in  each  other,  such  is  the  care  one  has  with  children 
and  wife ;  but  like  the  shoot  of  the  bamboo  not  clinging 
to  anything,  let  one  wander  alone  like  a  rhinoceros. 

"  As  a  beast  unbound  in  the  forest  goes  feeding  at  pleas- 
1  Max  Miiller's  Sacred  Books  of  the  East,  vol.  x.,  part  ii.,  p.  6 


208         THE  RELIGIOUS   ASPECT   OF   PHILOSOPHY. 

lire,  so  let  the  wise  man,  considering  only  his  own  will, 
wander  alone  like  a  rhinoceros.  .  .  . 

..."  Discontented  are  some  ascetics,  also  some 
householders,  dwelling  in  houses ;  let  one,  caring  little 
about  other  people's  children,  wander  alone  like  a  rhinoc- 
eros. 

"  If  one  acquires  a  clever  companion,  an  associate  right- 
eous and  wise,  let  him,  overcoming  all  dangers,  wander 
about  with  him  glad  and  thoughtful. 

"  If  one  does  not  acquire  a  clever  companion,  an  asso- 
ciate righteous  and  wise,  then  as  a  king  abandoning  his 
conquered  kingdom,  let  him  wander  alone  like  a  rhinoc- 
eros. .  .  . 

.  .  .  "  Seeing  bright  golden  bracelets,  well- wrought  by 
the  goldsmith,  striking  against  each  other  when  there  are 
two  on  one  arm,  let  one  wander  alone  like  a  rhinoceros. 

"  Thus,  if  I  join  myself  with  another,  I  shall  swear  or 
scold  ;  considering  this  danger  in  future,  let  one  wander 
alone  like  a  rhinoceros.  .  .  . 

.  .  .  "  Both  cold  and  heat,  hunger  and  thirst,  wind  and 
a  burning  sun,  and  gadflies  and  snakes,  —  having  over- 
come all  these  things,  let  one  wander  alone  like  a  rhinoc- 
eros. 

"  As  the  elephant,  the  strong,  the  spotted,  the  large, 
after  leaving  the  herd  walks  at  pleasure  in  the  forest,  even 
so  let  one  wander  alone  like  a  rhinoceros.  .  .  . 

"  Not  adorning  himself,  not  looking  out  for  sport,  amuse- 
ment, and  the  delight  of  the  pleasure  in  the  world ;  on 
the  contrary,  being  loath  of  a  life  of  dressing,  speaking 
the  truth,  let  one  wander  alone  like  a  rhinoceros.  .  .  . 

..."  This  is  a  tie,  in  this  there  is  little  happiness, 
little  enjoyment,  but  more  of  pain,  this  is  a  fishhook,  so 
having  understood,  let  a  thoughtful  man  wander  alone 
like  a  rhinoceros. 


THE   ORGANIZATION  OF  LIFE.  209 

"  Having  torn  the  ties,  having  broken  the  net  as  a  fish 
in  the  water,  being  like  a  fire  not  returning  to  the  burnt 
place,  let  one  wander  alone  like  a  rhinoceros.  .  .  . 

..."  Not  abandoning  seclusion  and  meditation,  always 
wandering  in  accordance  with  the  Dhammas,  seeing  misery 
in  the  existences,  let  one  wander  alone  like  the  rhinoc- 
eros. 

44  Wishing  for  the  destruction  of  desire,  being  careful, 
no  fool,  learned,  strenuous,  considerate,  restrained,  ener- 
getic, let  one  wander  alone  like  a  rhinoceros. 

"  Like  a  lion  not  trembling  at  noises,  like  the  wind  not 
caught  in  a  net,  like  a  lotus  not  stained  by  water,  let  one 
wander  alone  like  a  rhinoceros. 

"  As  a  lion  strong  by  his  teeth,  after  overcoming  all  an- 
imals, wanders  victorious  as  the  king  of  the  animals,  and 
haunts  distant  dwelling-places,  even  so  let  one  wander 
alone  like  a  rhinoceros." 

..."  They  cultivate  the  society  of  others,  and  serve 
them  for  the  sake  of  advantage  ;  friends  without  a  motive 
are  now  difficult  to  get,  men  know  their  own  profit  and 
are  impure ;  therefore  let  one  wander  alone  like  a  rhinoc- 
eros." 

When  one  contemplates  the  ideal  of  the  heroic  in- 
dividualism in  this  its  purest  form,  rugged,  empty  of 
sensuous  comforts,  yet  noble  and  inspiring  in  all  but 
the  highest  degree,  one  feels  how  hard  the  decision 
as  to  its  worth  will  be,  unless  the  moral  insight  gives 
very  definitely  and  authoritatively  its  ruling  in  the 
matter.  But  fortunately,  in  trying  to  judge  of  even 
so  splendid  a  caprice  as  this,  we  are  not  left  to  our 
individual  opinion.  The  will  of  the  Titan  as  to  the 
world  of  life  is  simply,  by  hypothesis,  not  the  univer- 
sal will.  The  one  being  that  included  in  his  life  all 
14 


210         THE   RELIGIOUS   ASPECT    OF   PHILOSOPHY. 

our  petty  lives,  how  must  he  regard  this  self-seeking 
loneliness  of  disposition  ?  What  is  this  heroic  life 
but  an  overflow  from  the  great  stream  of  universal 
life,  a  pool,  that,  left  to  itself  by  some  subsiding 
flood,  slowly  dries  away  in  its  shallow  stagnancy, 
until  it  becomes  a  mud-puddle?  And  as  for  the 
proof  of  this,  what  becomes  of  your  hero  if  you  take 
him  at  his  word,  and  leave  him  to  himself  like  a  rhi- 
noceros ?  Then  indeed  he  soon  sinks  to  the  level  of 
a  peevish  animal.  His  admirable  character  is  what 
it  is  by  reason  of  his  conflicts  with  his  fellows,  and 
by  reason  of  the  respect  that  he  excites  in  others. 
Stop  talking  about  him,  cease  admiring  him,  do  not 
even  fight  with  him,  ignore  him  utterly  ;  and  with 
these  external  supports  see  his  inner  heroism  vanish. 
He  exists  as  hero,  in  fact,  only  because  he  is  in  or- 
ganic relation  to  the  world  about  him.  His  boasted 
loneliness  is  an  illusion.  Could  not  Mephistopheles 
have  his  laugh  here  too? 

But  the  Titan  is  often  properly  the  hero  not  only 
of  a  comedy,  but  also  of  a  tragedy ;  and  a  tragedy, 
as  we  know,  always  discovers  to  us  the  gloomy  worth- 
lessness  of  this  individual  life  as  such.  Mortal  man, 
once  brought  to  possess  the  moral  insight,  finds  his 
destiny  not  in  himself,  but  in  the  life  about  him,  or 
in  the  ideal  life  of  God.  And  the  tragedy  expresses 
one  way  of  getting  this  insight. 

In  short,  just  what  the  Heresy  of  Prometheus  as- 
serts to  be  the  perfect,  namely,  the  complete  and  all- 
sided  development  of  life,  just  that  can  belong  only 
to  the  general,  not  to  the  individual  life.  Hence 
Titanism  always  contradicts  itself.  It  says  that  I, 


THE   ORGANIZATION   OF   LIFE.  211 

the  narrow,  limited  self,  who  am  dependent  for  every 
quality  of  my  life  on  constant  living  intercourse  with 
other  people,  must  become  perfect,  independent, 
practically  infinite.  But  to  ask  this  is  to  ask  that  I 
destroy  myself,  and  my  Titanism  with  me.  Unquiet 
is  and  must  be  the  life  that  seeks  perfection  in  any 
group  of  selves.  And  so  the  ideal  cannot  here  be 
found. 

V. 

Somewhat  hastily,  as  our  limits  have  required,  we 
have  pursued  the  definition  of  our  ideal  through  the 
imperfect  forms  of  individualism.  And  now  what 
must  it  be  that  the  moral  insight,  with  its  Universal 
Will,  demands  of  the  possible  future  moral  humanity, 
not  as  the  negative  task  of  preparing  the  way  for 
goodness,  but  as  the  positive  ideal  task  of  the  com- 
munity in  which  the  moral  insight  is  attained  ?  This 
demand  is  :  Organize  all  Life.  And  this  means : 
Find  work  for  the  life  of  the  coming  moral  human- 
ity which  shall  be  so  comprehensive  and  definite  that 
each  moment  of  every  man's  life  in  that  perfect 
state,  however  rich  and  manifold  men's  lives  may 
then  be,  can  be  and  will  be  spent  in  the  accomplish- 
ment of  that  one  highest  impersonal  work.  If  such 
work  is  found  and  accepted,  the  goal  of  human  prog- 
ress will  be  in  so  far  reached.  There  will  then  be 
harmony,  the  negative  expression  of  the  moral  in- 
sight ;  and  there  will  be  work,  and  organization  of 
work.  And  this  work  will  be  no  more  the  work  of 
so  and  so  many  separate  men,  but  it  will  be  the  work 
of  man  as  man.  And  the  separate  men  will  not 


212         THE  RELIGIOUS   ASPECT   OF   PHILOSOPHY. 

know  or  care  whether  they  separately  are  happy ; 
for  they  shall  have  no  longer  individual  wills,  but 
the  Universal  Will  shall  work  in  and  through  them, 
as  the  one  will  of  two  lovers  finds  itself  in  the  united 
life  of  these  twain,  so  that  neither  of  them  asks,  as 
lover,  whether  this  is  his  perfection  or  the  other's 
that  he  experiences.  For  their  love  makes  them 
one.  In  such  wise  we  must  figure  to  ourselves  the 
ideal  state  of  humanity.  And  anything  short  of 
that  we  are  required  by  the  moral  insight  to  alter  in 
the  direction  of  that  end. 

The  reader  may  ask,  What  work  can  be  found 
that  can  thus  realize  the  universal  will  ?  It  is  not 
for  us  to  know  the  whole  nature  of  that  work.  We 
set  before  us  the  ideal  task  to  discover  such  forms 
of  activity  as  shall  tend  to  organize  life.  The  com- 
plete organization  we  cannot  now  foresee.  But  we 
can  foresee  in  what  general  direction  that  human 
activity  will  tend,  if  it  is  ever  discovered.  For  we 
have  certain  human  activities  that  do  now  already 
tend  to  the  impersonal  organization  of  the  life  of 
those  engaged  in  them.  Such  activities  are  found 
in  the  work  of  art,  in  the  pursuit  of  truth,  and  in  a 
genuine  public  spirit.  Beauty,  Knowledge,  and  the 
State,  are  three  ideal  objects  that  do  actually  claim 
from  those  who  serve  them  harmony,  freedom  from 
selfishness,  and  a  wholly  impersonal  devotion.  Both 
in  art  and  in  the  service  of  the  state,  the  weakness 
of  human  nature  makes  men  too  often  put  personal 
ambition  before  the  true  service  of  their  chosen 
ideal.  The  faultiness  of  all  such  individualism  is, 
however,  generally  recognized.  The  dignity  and  se- 


THE   ORGANIZATION   OF   LIFE.  213 

verely  impersonal  relationships  and  language  of  offi- 
cial life  are  intended  to  express  the  sense  that  no  in- 
dividual has  as  such  the  right  to  recognition  at  the 
moment  when  he  exercises  an  official  function.  He 
lives  at  the  time  wholly  in  his  office.  The  state  is 
just  then  everything.  Even  so  all  higher  criticism 
professes  to  disregard  the  personal  pleasure  of  the 
artist,  and  the  personal  whim  of  the  critic.  The 
production  and  the  criticism  of  Art  are  no  amuse- 
ments of  two  individuals.  They  are  work  done 
in  the  service  of  the  one  mistress,  the  divine  art  it- 
self. But  still,  notwithstanding  the  recognition  o£ 
this  ideal  devotion  to  one's  country  or  to  one's  art, 
our  typical  politician  and  our  typical  ambitious  ar- 
tist show  us  that  these  activities  still  but  imperfectly 
overcome  individualism,  or  lead  men  to  the  higher 
plane  of  moral  life.  Better  success  in  organizing  life 
one  finds,  when  one  passes  to  the  activity  of  truth- 
seeking,  especially  in  fields  where  human  thought 
is  best  master  of  itself,  and  best  conscious  of  its 
powers.  When  one  considers  the  work  of  a  company 
of  scientific  specialists,  —  how  each  one  lives  for  his 
science,  and  how,  when  the  specialty  is  advanced 
and  well  organized,  no  one  in  official  expressions 
of  his  purely  scientific  purposes  dares  either  to  give 
himself  airs  of  importance  as  an  individual,  or  to 
show  any  benevolence  or  favoritism  or  fear  in  con- 
sidering and  testing  the  work  of  anybody  else ;  when 
one  sees  how  impersonal  is  this  idea  of  the  scientific 
life,  how  no  self  of  them  all  is  supposed  to  have  a 
thought  about  his  science  because  it  pleases  him, 
but  solely  because  it  is  true,  —  when  one  consid- 


214         THE   RELIGIOUS   ASPECT    OF   PHILOSOPHY. 

ers  all  this,  one  sees  faintly  what  the  ideal  relation 
of  mankind  would  be,  if  the  ideal  work  for  all  men 
were  found.  This  devoted  scientific  spirit  is  itself 
only  an  ideal  even  to-day ;  and  all  sorts  of  personal 
motives  still  interfere  to  disturb  its  purity.  But 
here,  at  all  events,  one  sees  dimly  in  a  concrete  in- 
stance what  the  organization  of  life  may  yet  be- 
come. 

Now  suppose  a  world  in  which  men  had  some  one 
end  of  activity  that  united  somehow  all  the  differ- 
ent strivings  of  our  nature,  —  aBsthetie,  social,  theo- 
retical. Suppose  that  in  the  pursuit  of  this  end  all 
the  petty,  selfish  aims  of  individuals  had  been  for- 
gotten. Suppose  that  men  said  no  longer :  "  I  have 
won  this  good  thing  for  myself  and  my  friends," 
but  only,  "  This  good  is  attained,"  no  matter  by 
whom.  Suppose  that  thus  all  life  was  organized  in 
and  through  this  activity,  so  that  a  man  rose  up 
and  lay  down  to  rest,  ate  and  drank,  exercised  and 
amused  his  senses,  met  his  fellows,  talked  with  them, 
lived  and  planned  with  them,  built  his  cities,  wan- 
dered over  the  oceans,  searched  the  heavens  with 
his  telescopes,  toiled  in  his  laboratories,  sang  his 
songs,  wrote  his  poems,  loved  and  died,  all  for  the 
service  of  this  one  great  work,  and  knew  his  life 
only  as  the  means  to  serve  that  one  end,  then  would 
the  ideal  of  the  moral  insight  be  attained.  The 
world  of  life  would  be  as  one  will,  working  through 
all  and  in  all,  seeking  the  ends  of  no  one  individual, 
caring  not  for  any  stupid  and  meaningless  "  aggre- 
gate "  of  individual  states,  but  getting  what  as  in- 
sight it  demands,  the  absolute  Unity  of  Life.  Then 


THE   ORGANIZATION   OF  LIFE.  215 

indeed  we  should  have  reached  the  ideal ;  and  this 
being  the  ideal,  all  is  good  that  helps  us  in  the  di- 
rection thereof,  and  all  is  evil  that  drives  us  in  the 
opposing  direction. 

The  imperfection  and  the  relative  justification  in 
its  place  of  benevolent  hedonism  are  thus  indicated. 
The  moral  insight  being  attained  by  all  men  as  an 
experience,  this  insight  could  not  will  for  individuals 
such  painful  experiences  as  would  degrade  the  suf- 
ferers below  the  level  of  the  insight  itself,  back  to 
the  struggles  and  the  illusions  of  individualism.  It 
would  be  the  business  of  men  then  as  now,  to  remove 
useless  pain  out  of  the  world,  not  however  for  any 
other  reason  than  that  pain  implies  separation  of 
the  sufferer  from  the  consciousness  of  universal  life, 
and  consequent  disharmony  of  his  will  in  its  relation 
to  other  wills.  Pain  that  springs  from  selfish  disap- 
pointments we  must  often  temporarily  increase,  that 
we  may  lead  a  man  out  of  himself.  But  for  the 
rest,  the  moral  insight  rejects  pain,  though  only  be- 
cause it  means  disharmony  of  the  wills  that  are  in 
the  world. 

Thus  we  have  completed  the  expression  of  our  gen- 
eral ideal.  We  must  add  a  few  concrete  precepts 
that  this  ideal  has  to  give  us  concerning  the  conduct 
of  our  daily  life.  Plainly,  if  such  a  goal  as  this  is 
what  we  aim  at  from  afar,  the  acts  of  our  lives  must 
be  influenced  by  it.  What  relation  between  me  and 
my  neighbor  to-day  does  this  moral  law  establish  ? 

Thou  and  I,  neighbor,  have  in  this  world  no  rights 
as  individuals.  We  are  instruments.  The  insight 
that  begins  in  me  when  I  find  thee,  must  go  further. 


216         THE   RELIGIOUS   ASPECT   OF   PHILOSOPHY. 

I  find  not  only  thee,  but  also  Life  Universal.  In- 
asmuch as  I  do  anything  for  thee,  I  do  it  also  to 
the  life  universal;  but,  even  so,  it  is  only  because 
I  serve  the  life  universal  that  I  dare  serve  thee. 
Thy  happiness,  however  near  and  dear  thou  art  to 
me,  is  but  a  drop  in  this  vast  ocean  of  life.  And 
we  must  be  ready  to  sacrifice  ourselves  to  the  Whole. 
But  while  we  live  together,  and  while  we  may  with- 
out sin  enjoy  each  other's  presence,  how  shall  we  treat 
each  other  ?  As  mere  masses  of  happy  or  miserable 
states  ?  As  selves  to  be  made  separately  perfect ! 
No,  that  cannot  be.  We  must  live  united  with  each 
other  and  the  world.  Therefore  must  we  do  our 
part  to  find  work  vast  enough  to  bring  us  all  in  so 
far  as  may  be  into  unity,  without  cramping  the  tal- 
ent of  any  of  us.  Each  then  is  to  do  his  work,  but 
so  as  to  unite  with  the  work  of  others.  How  may 
we  accomplish  this  ?  By  seeking  to  develop  every 
form  of  life  that  does  bring  men  into  such  oneness. 
Our  vocation,  whatever  it  be,  must  not  end  simply 
in  increasing  what  people  call  the  aggregate  happi- 
ness of  mankind,  but  in  giving  human  life  more 
interconnection,  closer  relationship.  Therefore  we 
must  serve  as  we  can  art,  science,  truth,  the  state, 
not  as  if  these  were  machines  for  giving  people  pleas- 
ant feelings,  but  because  they  make  men  more  united. 
When  we  urge  or  seek  independence  of  character, 
we  must  do  so  only  because  such  independence  is  a 
temporary  means,  whose  ultimate  aim  is  harmony  and 
unity  of  all  men  on  a  higher  plane.  In  all  this  we 
must  keep  before  us  very  often  the  high  ideal  that 
we  are  trying  to  approach.  And  when  we  judge  of 


THE   ORGANIZATION   OF   LIFE.  217 

a  good  action  we  must  say,  not  that  this  was  good  be- 
cause it  made  some  one  happy,  but  that  it  was  good 
because  it  tended  directly  or  remotely  to  realize  the 
Universal  Will. 

And  so,  however  much  mere  harmony  may  be  our 
aim,  we  must  be  ready  very  often  temporarily  to  fight 
with  disorganizing  and  separating  tendencies,  forces, 
or  men.  When  we  fight  we  must  do  so  for  the  sake 
of  conquering  a  peace  in  the  name  of  the  Highest. 
And  so  we  must  fight  resolutely,  fearlessly,  merci- 
lessly. For  we  care  not  how  many  stubbornly  disor- 
ganizing spirits  are  crushed  on  the  way.  The  One 
Will  must  conquer.  But  on  the  other  side  we  must 
be  very  careful  of  every  soul,  and  of  every  tendency 
that  may,  without  destruction,  be  moulded  into  the 
service  of  the  Universal  Will.  The  moral  insight 
desires  that  no  hair  fall  from  the  head  of  any  living 
creature  unnecessarily.  The  one  aim  is  stern  to  its 
steadfast  enemies,  but  it  is  infinitely  regardful  of  all 
the  single  aims,  however  they  may  seem  wayward, 
that  can  at  last  find  themselves  subdued  and  yet 
realized  in  its  presence,  and  so  conformed  to  its  will. 
All  these  rivulets  of  purpose,  however  tiny,  all  these 
strong  floods  of  passion,  however  angry,  it  desires  to 
gather  into  the  surging  tides  of  its  infinite  ocean, 
that  nothing  may  be  lost  that  consents  to  enter.  Its 
unity  is  no  abstraction.  The  One  Will  is  not  a  one- 
sided will.  It  desires  the  realization  of  all  possible 
life,  however  rich,  strong,  ardent,  courageous,  mani- 
fold such  life  may  be,  if  only  this  life  can  enter  into 
that  highest  unity.  All  that  has  will  is  sacred  to  it, 
save  in  so  far  as  any  will  refuses  to  join  with  the 


218         THE   RELIGIOUS   ASPECT    OF   PHILOSOPHY. 

others  in  the  song  and  shout  of  the  Sons  of  God. 
Its  warfare  is  never  intolerance,  its  demand  for  sub- 
mission is  never  tyranny,  its  sense  of  the  excellence 
of  its  own  unity  is  never  arrogance ;  for  its  warfare 
is  aimed  at  the  intolerance  of  the  separate  selves, 
its  yoke  is  the  yoke  of  complete  organic  freedom, 
its  pride  is  in  the  perfect  development  of  all  life. 
When  we  serve  it,  we  must  sternly  cut  off  all  that 
life  in  ourselves  or  in  others  that  cannot  ultimately 
conform  to  the  universal  will ;  but  we  have  nothing 
but  love  for  every  form  of  sentient  existence  that  can 
in  any  measure  express  this  Will. 


VI. 

We  have  done  for  the  present  with  the  ideal,  and 
must  turn  to  reality.  Our  religious  consciousness 
wants  support  for  us  in  our  poor  efforts  to  do  right. 
Is  this  real  world  that  we  have  so  naively  assumed 
thus  far,  in  any  wise  concerned  to  help  us  in  realizing 
ideals,  or  to  support  us  by  any  form  of  approval  in 
our  search  for  the  right  ?  We  must  face  this  prob- 
lem coolly  and  skeptically,  if  we  want  any  result. 
We  must  not  fear  the  thunders  of  any  angry  dog- 
matic thinker,  nor  the  pain  that  such  researches  must 
cause  us  if  they  are  unsuccessful.  It  is  something 
very  precious  that  we  seek,  and  we  must  run  great 
risks,  if  need  be,  to  get  it. 

Let  us  begin  to  define  a  little  better  what  this  is 
that  we  seek.  By  a  support  for  moral  acts  in  outer 
reality,  we  do  not  mean  merely  or  mainly  a  power 
that  will  reward  goodness.  The  moral  insight  cares 


THE    ORGANIZATION    OF   LIFE.  219 

not  for  individual  rewards.  Only  the  good  intention 
is  truly  moral.  Good  acts  done  for  pay  are  selfish 
acts.  So  the  outer  support  that  we  want  in  our  mo- 
rality is  not  reward  as  such.  We  want  to  know  that, 
when  we  try  to  do  right,  we  are  not  alone ;  that  there 
is  something  outside  of  us  that  harmonizes  with  our 
own  moral  efforts  by  being  itself  in  some  way  moral. 
This  something  may  be  a  person  or  a  tendency.  Let 
us  exemplify  what  we  mean  by  some  familiar  cases. 
Job  seeks,  in  his  consciousness  of  moral  integrity, 
for  outer  support  in  the  midst  of  his  sufferings. 
Now  whatever  he  may  think  about  rewards,  they  are 
not  only  rewards  that  he  seeks.  He  wants  a  vindi- 
cator, a  righteous,  all-knowing  judge,  to  arise,  that 
can  bear  witness  how  upright  he  has  been ;  such  a 
vindicator  he  wants  to  see  face  to  face,  that  he  may 
call  upon  him  as  a  beholder  of  what  has  actually 
happened.  "  Oh  that  I  knew  where  I  might  find 
him,  that  I  might  come  even  to  his  seat.  I  would 
order  my  cause  before  him,  and  fill  my  mouth  with 
arguments.  I  would  know  the  words  which  he 
would  answer  me,  and  understand  what  he  would 
say  unto  me.  .  .  .  There  the  righteous  might  dis- 
pute with  him ;  so  should  I  be  delivered  forever  from 
my  judge.  Behold  I  go  forward,  but  he  is  not  there  ; 
and  backward,  but  I  cannot  perceive  him  :  On  the 
left  hand,  where  he  doth  work,  but  I  cannot  behold 
him  :  he  hideth  himself  on  the  right  hand,  that  I 
cannot  see  him :  But  he  knoweth  the  way  that  I 
take  :  when  he  hath  tried  me  I  shall  come  forth  as 
gold."  . 

So  again  in  the  great  parable  of  the  judgment  day, 


220         THE   RELIGIOUS   ASPECT    OF   PHILOSOPHY. 

in  the  twenty -fifth  chapter  of  Matthew,  the  moral 
force  of  the  story  is  not  expressed  by  the  rewards 
and  punishments  described,  any  more  than  in  Elijah's 
vision  on  Horeb,  —  the  Lord  was  in  the  thunder  and 
in  the  fire.  But  the  moral  force  of  the  scene  lies  in 
the  concluding  words  that  the  judge  is  made  to  speak 
to  the  multitudes  of  just  and  unjust.  "  Inasmuch  as 
ye  did  it  unto  the  least  of  these,  ye  did  it  unto  me." 
That  is,  if  we  may  paraphrase  the  words  of  the  judge  : 
"J^LJie  says,  "  represent  all  beings.  Their  good  is 
mine.  If  they  are  hungry  or  naked  or  sick  or  im- 
prisoned, so  am  I.  We  are  brethren  ;  ours  is  all 
one  universal  life.  That  I  sit  in  this  seat,  arbiter 
of  heaven  and  hell,  makes  me  no  other  than  the  rep- 
resentative of  universal  life.  Such  reverence  as  ye 
now  bear  to  me  is  due,  and  always  was  due,  to  the 
least  of  these  my  brethren."  The  infinite  sacredness 
of  all  conscious  life,  that  is  the  sense  of  the  story  ; 
the  rest  is  the  scenic  accompaniment,  which,  whether 
literally  or  symbolically  true,  has  no  direct  moral 
significance.  Now  the  knowledge  such  as  Job  sought, 
the  knowledge  that  there  is  in  the  universe  some  con- 
sciousness that  sees  and  knows  all  reality,  including 
ourselves,  for  which  therefore  all  the  good  and  evil 
of  our  lives  is  plain  fact,  —  this  knowledge  would  be 
a  religious  support  to  the  moral  consciousness.  The 
knowledge  that  there  is  a  being  that  is  no  respecter 
of  persons,  that  considers  all  lives  as  equal,  and  that 
estimates  our  acts  according  to  their  true  value,  — 
this  would  be  a  genuine  support  to  the  religious  need 
in  us,  quite  apart  from  all  notions  about  reward 
and  punishment.  A  thinking  being,  a  seer  of  all 


THE   ORGANIZATION   OF   LIFE.  221 

good  and  evil,  is  thus  desired.  This  thinking  being 
would  still  have  religious  significance,  even  if  it  had 
no  other  attributes  than  these.  Should  we  find  it 
necessary  to  regard  this  being  as  without  affection, 
sympathy,  or  even  power  to  act,  as  without  willing- 
ness to  avenge  wrong-doing,  if  we  had  to  deprive  it 
of  everything  else  that  is  human  save  knowledge ; 
let  this  be  a  passionless  and  perfect  knowledge, 
an  absolutely  fair  judgment  of  our  moral  actions, 
and  there  would  still  be  in  the  world  something  of 
religious  value.  It  is  not  affirmed  that  we  ought 
to  rest  content  with  such  a  conception  as  this,  but 
at  all  events  this  conception  would  not  be  valueless. 
Even  so  again,  the  conception  of  some  natural  ten- 
dency in  the  world  that,  being  "  a  power  not  our- 
selves," "  makes  for  righteousness,"  this  conception, 
as  Mr.  Matthew  Arnold  has  so  well  shown  us,  would 
have  a  religious  value.  Something  of  this  kind  then, 
more  or  less  definite  and  full  of  life,  is  what  we  seek. 
What  indication  is  there  that  such  search  is  not 
hopeless  ?  For  the  author's  part,  he  professes  to  be 
quite  willing  to  accept  any  result  of  research,  how- 
ever gloomy  or  skeptical,  to  which  he  is  led  by  gen- 
uine devotion  to  the  interests  of  human  thought  as 
thought.  But  he  insists  that  as  moral  beings  we 
should  make  clear  to  ourselves  what  are  the  inter- 
ests of  thought,  and  that  we  should  see  whether  they 
do  lead  us  to  results  that  are  not  wholly  skeptical, 
nor  altogether  gloomy.  There  is  no  reason  for  clip- 
ping our  own  wings  for  fear  lest  we  should  escape 
from  our  own  coops  and  fly  over  the  palings  into 
our  own  garden.  Let  us  get  all  the  satisfaction  from 


222         THE   RELIGIOUS   ASPECT   OF   PHILOSOPHY. 

philosophy  that  we  can.  In  truth  we  shall  never  get 
too  much. 

But,  for  the  rest,  the  reader  must  be  reminded  of 
one  thing  that  was  said  in  the  opening  chapter  about 
the  magnitude  and  boldness  of  the  demands  that  re- 
ligious philosophy  makes  in  coming  to  the  study  of 
the  world.  We  said  that  we  will  be  satisfied  only 
with  the  very  best  that  we  can  get.  We  want  to 
find  some  reality  that  our  ideal  aims  can  lead  us  to 
regard  as  of  Infinite  Worth.  If  we  cannot  find  that, 
then  the  best  possible  aspect  of  reality  must  be 
chosen  instead.  We  will  not  be  satisfied  with  little, 
if  we  can  get  much.  Our  religious  demands  are 
boundless.  We  will  not  falsify  the  truth ;  nor  yet 
will  we  dread  any  disaster  to  our  ideal  aims,  how- 
ever great  the  disappointment  that  would  result  from 
failure.  But,  while  pursuing  the  truth  with  rever- 
ence, we  will  not  withdraw  our  demands  until  we  see 
that  we  can  get  no  certain  success  in  them. 

We  insist,  therefore,  that  the  religiously  valuable 
reality  in  the  world  shall  be,  if  so  we  can  find  it,  a 
Supreme  Reality,  no  mere  chance  outcome  of  special 
circumstances,  but  an  ultimate  aspect  of  things. 

Furthermore,  the  special  form  that  our  ideal  has 
taken  demands  another  character  in  our  object  of 
religious  satisfaction.  It  must  be  such  as  to  support 
the  realization  of  our  particular  ideal.  If  a  power, 
it  must  aim  at  the  unity  of  our  lives  ;  if  in  some 
other  way  approved  as  the  deepest  truth  of  things,  it 
must  show  us  how  our  ideal  either  can  be  realized 
by  us,  or  else  is  already  realized  at  the  heart  of  this 
truth. 


THE   ORGANIZATION   OF  LIFE.  223 

Such  is  the  work  of  our  second  book.  We  ap- 
proach it  not  as  if  we  expected  any  mystical  revela- 
tion, but  solely  as  having  for  our  one  desire  to  find 
out  what  a  sensible  man  ought  reasonably  to  think  of 
the  world  wherein  he  finds  himself. 


BOOK  II. 

THE  SEARCH  FOE  A  RELIGIOUS  TRUTH. 


CHAPTER  VIII. 

THE  WORLD   OF   DOUBT. 

WHEN  we  turn  from  our  world  of  ideals  to  the 
world  actually  about  us,  our  position  is  not  at  once 
a  happy  position.  These  ideals  that  we  have  agreed 
upon,  in  so  far  as  they  are  our  own,  do  not  make  the 
world,  and  people  differ  endlessly  about  what  the 
world  is  and  means.  Very  naturally,  then,  we  also 
must  ourselves  begin  with  difficulties  and  doubts. 
For  if  we  want  a  religious  doctrine  that  in  these  days 
can  stand  us  in  good  stead,  we  must  fear  nothing, 
and  must  run  the  risk  of  all  the  disasters  of  thought. 
The  warfare  of  faiths  is  so  angry  and  ancient,  that 
we  must  be  content  if,  with  our  best  efforts,  we  get 
anything  out  of  it  at  all.  As  millions  of  brains  must 
toil,  doubtless,  for  centuries  before  any  amount  of 
ideal  agreement  among  men  is  attained  or  even  ap- 
proximated, we  must  be  content  if  we  do  very  little 
and  work  very  hard.  We  can  be  tolerably  certain 
that  in  a  world  where  nearly  all  is  dark  very  much 
of  our  labor  will  be  wasted.  But  this  is  natural. 
There  is  the  delight  of  activity  in  truth-seeking  ;  but 
when,  at  the  outset,  you  compare  your  hopes  and 
claims  with  the  shadowy  and  doubtful  results  that 
you  may  reach,  the  comparison  cannot  seem  other- 
wise than  melancholy.  Through  the  failures  of  mil- 


228         THE   RELIGIOUS   ASPECT   OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

lions  of  devoted  servants,  the  humanity  of  the  future 
may  possibly  (we  do  not,  at  least  at  this  point  in  our 
study,  know  that  it  will  certainly)  be  led  to  a  grand 
success.  This  far-off  divine  event  to  which,  for  all 
we  know,  our  fragment  of  creation  may  be  moving, 
but  which  at  any  rate  we  regard  with  longing  and 
delight,  constitutes  the  moral  aim  of  our  philosophic 
studies.  It  is  good  to  strive. 

In  the  present  chapter,  therefore,  we  shall  devote 
ourselves  for  the  most  part  to  negative  criticism  of 
certain  views  that  are  or  may  be  held  about  the  real 
world. 

I. 

That  skepticism  in  studying  reality  is  to  some  ex- 
tent useful,  most  people  will  admit.  But  not  every 
one  will  follow  us  at  once  into  the  thorough-going 
and  uncompromising  skepticism  that  we  shall  have 
to  present  in  the  following  as  the  very  basis  of  our 
positive  doctrine.  It  is  surprising  how  easily  the 
philosophic  need  is  satisfied  in  the  minds  of  most 
persons,  even  in  the  minds  of  many  professed  philo- 
sophic students.  A  few  very  complacent  questions, 
readily  if  unintelligibly  answered,  put  to  rest  the 
whole  desire  that  such  people  feel  to  cross-examine 
reason.  In  fact  they  seem  to  hold  that  a  certain 
disrespect  would  be  shown  by  questioning  reason 
any  more  sharply ;  and  so  their  philosophy  is  like  a 
Congressional  investigation  of  the  doings  of  a  politi- 
cian, conducted  by  his  fellow-partisans.  But  we  feel, 
in  writing  this  book,  that  such  a  philosophy,  whose 
only  business  it  is  to  "  whitewash  "  reason,  is  an  in- 


THE  WORLD   OF  DOUBT.  229 

suit  to  reason.  Reason's  investigations  of  its  own  na- 
ture are  not  partisan  affairs  conducted  for  the  sake 
of  effect ;  nor  does  reason  seek,  like  a  demagogue,  to 
get  a  popular  "  vindication,"  but  solely  to  reach  the 
deepest  possible  insight  into  its  own  absolute  truth. 
Hence  we  refuse  utterly  to  have  the  following  re- 
garded as  in  any  narrower  sense  an  "  apology  "  for 
any  religious  truth,  since  the  defensive  or  apologetic 
attitude  in  presence  of  religious  problems  is  once  for 
all  an  insult  to  genuine  religion.  If  there  is  truth 
absolute,  we  desire  to  know  the  same,  and  if  we  ever 
get  a  glimpse  of  it,  doubtless  it  will  need  very  little 
apology  from  us.  But  meanwhile  we  propose  to 
doubt  fearlessly  and  thoroughly.  If  our  limits  pre- 
vent here  the  proper  exhaustive  search  for  all  the 
actual  difficulties  of  the  views  that  we  present,  still 
we  want  to  have,  and  as  far  as  may  be  to  show,  the 
spirit  of  honest,  determined,  conscientious  skepti- 
cism. A  clerical  friend  of  the  author's  impressed 
him  very  much  in  early  youth  by  the  words :  "  God 
likes  to  have  us  doubt  his  existence,  if  we  do  so  sin- 
cerely and  earnestly."  These  words  are  almost  a 
truism  ;  they  surely  ought  to  be  a  truism.  Yet  they^ 
have  been  forgotten  in  many  a  controversy.  Surely, 
if  God  exists,  he  knows  at  least  as  much  about  phi- 
losophy as  any  of  us  do ;  he  has  at  least  as  much  ap- 1 
preciation  for  a  philosophic  problem  as  we  can  have. 
And  if  his  own  existence  presents  a  fine  philosophic ) 
problem,  he  delights  therein  at  least  as  much  as  we 
do.  And  he  then  does  not  like  to  see  that  problem 
half-heartedly  handled  by  timid,  whining,  trembling 
men,  who  constantly  apologize  to  God  because  the 


230         THE   RELIGIOUS  ASPECT   OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

existence  of  certain  fools  called  atheists  forces  them 
to  present  in  very  pious  language  certain  traditional 
proofs  of  his  existence.  No,  surely  not  in  this  spirit 
would  a  rational  God,  if  he  exists,  have  us  approach 
the  question.  But  with  at  least  as  much  coolness  and 
clearness  of  head  as  we  try  to  have  when  we  toil  over 
a  problem  in  mathematics  ;  with  at  least  as  merciless 
an  analysis  of  all  that  is  obscure  and  doubtful  and 
contradictory  in  our  own  confused  ideas  as  we  should 
use  in  studying  science ;  with  at  least  as  much  eager- 
ness in  finding  out  the  weakness  and  the  uncertainty 
of  men's  wavering  and  ill-trained  judgments  as  we 
should  bring  to  the  examination  of  an  important 
commercial  investment,  —  with  at  least  so  much  of 
caution,  of  diligence,  and  of  doubt  we  should  ap- 
proach the  rational  study  of  the  Highest.  For  what 
can  insult  God  more  than  careless  blundering  ?  It 
is  shameful  that  men  should  ever  have  treated  this 
matter  as  if  it  were  the  aim  of  religious  philosophy 
to  have  a  store-house  of  formulated  traditional  an- 
swers ready  wherewith  to  silence  certain  troublesome 
people  called  doubters.  In  these  matters  the  truly 
philosophic  doubt  is  no  external  opinion  of  this  or 
that  wayward  person ;  this  truly  philosophic  doubt 
is  of  the  very  essence  of  our  thought.  It  is  not  to 
be  "  answered  "  or  "  silenced  "  by  so  and  so  much 
apologetic  pleading.  The  doubt  is  inherent  in  the 
subject-matter  as  we  must  in  the  beginning  regard 
the  same.  This  doubt  is  to  be  accepted  as  it  comes, 
and  then  to  be  developed  in  all  its  fullness  and  in  all 
its  intensity.  For  the  truth  of  the  matter  is  con- 
cealed in  that  doubt,  as  the  fire  is  concealed  in  the 


THE   WORLD   OF  DOUBT.  231 

stony  coal.  You  can  no  more  reject  the  doubt  and 
keep  the  innermost  truth,  than  you  can  toss  away  the 
coal  and  hope  to  retain  its  fire.  This  doubt  is  the 
insight  partially  attained. 

Such  must  be  our  spirit.  And  now,  to  apply  it 
at  once  to  the  problems  before  us,  where  shall  we  be- 
gin our  search  for  a  religious  truth  ?  We  are  to  find, 
if  possible,  some  element  in  Reality  that  shall  have 
religious  significance.  But  how  shall  we  do  this  un- 
less we  have  made  clear  to  ourselves  in  what  sense 
we  know  Reality  at  all  ?  It  would  seem  that  our  re- 
ligious philosophy  must  begin  with  the  problem  of  all 
theoretical  philosophy  :  What  can  be  our  knowledge 
of  this  world,  and  whereon  can  this  knowledge  be 
founded  ? 

A  dark  and  dismal  topic,  one  may  say.  But  re- 
member, here  and  here  only  can  our  beloved  treas- 
ure be  found  buried.  Either  there  is  no  religious 
philosophy  possible,  or  it  is  here  ;  and  here  we  must 
delve  for  it.  Nor  let  one  be  too  much  terrified  at 
once  by  the  forbidding  aspect  of  the  question.  It  is 
indeed  no  easy  one ;  yet  to  answer  it  is  but  to  know 
the  real  meaning  of  our  own  thoughts.  This  truth 
that  we  seek  is  not  in  the  heavens,  nor  in  the  depths  ; 
it  is  nigh  us,  even  in  our  hearts.  Only  inattention 
can  be  hiding  it  from  us.  Let  us  look  closer. 

This  real  world  that  popular  thought  declares  to 
exist  outside  of  us  —  we  have  so  far  taken  it  on 
trust.  But  now,  what  right  have  we  so  to  take  it? 
What  do  we  mean  by  it?  When  we  say  that  we 
can  know  it,  do  we  not  mean  that  it  is  in  some  way 
bound  to  conform  to  some  of  our  thoughts  ?  Or,  if 


232         THE   RELIGIOUS   ASPECT   OF   PHILOSOPHY. 

you  will  put  the  matter  in  the  reverse  order,  and 
will  say,  with  seeming  modesty,  that  our  thought  is 
so  constituted  as  to  have  a  certain  likeness  to  real- 
ity, do  you  really  make  the  matter  clearer?  The 
mysterious  conformity  between  our  thought  and 
what  is  no  thought  of  ours  remains,  and  we  have  to 
make  clear  our  assurance  of  that.  This  assurance 
itself,  if  we  got  it,  would  seem  to  be  in  just  the  same 
position  as  is  the  conformity  of  which  it  is  to  assure 
us.  Itself  again  would  be  outside  of  the  external  real 
world,  and  in  our  thought.  Yet  this  assurance  is  to 
tell  us  something  about  that  external  world,  namely, 
its  conformity  to  certain  of  our  thoughts.  What 
can  we  thus  know  about  any  external  object  at  all  ? 

The  difficulty  is  an  old  one.  Our  solution  of  it, 
if  we  get  any,  must  determine  the  whole  of  our  re- 
ligious thought.  Let  us  see  at  all  events  where  the 
difficulty  arises,  and  why.  Whether  or  no  there  is 
possible  any  solution,  the  difficulty  plainly  lies  in  a 
certain  conceived  relation  between  us  and  the  world. 
All  the  common  metaphysical  and  religious  doctrines 
begin  by  setting  a  thinker  over  against  an  external 
world,  which  is  declared  independent  of  his  thought, 
and  which  his  thought  is  then  required  to  grasp  and 
know.  This  supposed  relation  of  subject  and  object 
gives  metaphysics  its  seemingly  insoluble  problems. 
This  thinker,  whose  thought  is  one  fact,  while  that 
world  out  there  is  another  fact,  how  can  he  learn  by 
what  takes  place  in  his  thought,  that  is,  in  the  one 
of  these  two  supposed  entities,  what  goes  on  in  the 
other  of  these  entities,  namely,  in  the  world  ?  Once 
for  all,  this  marvelous  relation  of  pre established  har- 


THE   WORLD   OF  DOUBT.  233 

mony  between  these  supposed  separate  entities  de- 
mands philosophic  deduction.  The  relation,  to  be 
sure,  may  be  itself  a  metaphysical  figment.  We 
hold  that  it  is.  We  shall  try  to  show  hereafter  the 
baselessness  of  this  notion  of  a  world  of  external 
fact  on  one  side,  in  the  barren  isolation  of  its  tran- 
scendental reality,  with  an  equally  lonesome  thinker 
on  the  other  side,  somehow  magically  bound  to  fol- 
low after  the  facts  of  that  world.  We  hold,  to  put 
it  in  plain  language,  that  neither  the  external  world 
nor  the  individual  thinker  has  any  such  reality  as 
traditional  popular  beliefs,  together  with  most  met- 
aphysical schools,  have  desired  us  to  assume.  But, 
for  the  first,  we  cannot  yet  undertake  to  trouble  the 
reader  with  this  our  philosophic  speculation.  That 
will  come  in  its  good  time,  we  hope  not  too  unintel- 
ligibly, and  it  will  have  its  place  in  our  religious 
doctrine. 

We  begin,  however,  with  the  popular  metaphys- 
ical concept,  of  a  separate  external  world,  and  of  a 
thinker  bound  somehow  to  repeat  the  facts  of  it  in 
his  thought.  We  ask,  with  popular  metaphysics: 
How  can  we  be  sure  that  he  does  this  ?  And  from 
metaphysical  systems,  both  popular  and  unpopular, 
we  get  an  amazing  jargon  of  answers. 

The  most  popular  answer,  after  all,  is  a  threat,  a 
threat  repeated  endlessly  in  all  sorts  of  apologetic 
books,  but  still  a  mere  base,  abject,  wholly  unphilo- 
sophical  threat.  It  is  said  to  us  that  we  must  be- 
lieve our  human  thinker  to  be  capable  of  thinking 
correctly  the  facts  of  this  supposed  external  world, 
because,  if  he  does  not,  the  result  will  be  disastrous 


234         THE   RELIGIOUS  ASPECT   OF   PHILOSOPHY. 

to  the  whole  common  sense  conception  of  the  world. 
If  this  thinker  does  not  somehow  magically  repro- 
duce external  facts  in  his  private  mind,  then  is  our 
faith  vain,  and  we  are  all  very  miserable.  It  is  as- 
tonishing how  this,  the  most  helpless  abandonment 
of  all  philosophic  thought,  is  constantly  reiterated 
by  certain  of  those  who  pretend  to  be  philosophers. 
Can  a  threat  scare  us  from  philosophy  ?  To  get  a 
sure  foundation  for  our  religion,  we  begin  by  asking 
how  a  man  can  really  know  the  external  world  at 
all.  We  get  as  reply  the  threat  that,  unless  we  ad- 
mit the  knowledge  of  the  external  world,  we  must 
be  in  eternal  doubt,  and  therefore  wretched.  To 
doubt  this  knowledge,  we  are  told,  would  be  to 
doubt  all  that  makes  life  worth  living.  But  it  is 
just  because  we  want  to  find  a  sure  basis  for  what 
makes  life  worth  living  that  we  begin  with  this 
doubt.  We  are  determined  to  get  at  the  root  of 
this  matter,  however  bitter  may  be  the  evil  that  will 
befall  us  if  our  skepticism  does  not  succeed  in  get- 
ting past  this  guarded  gateway  of  philosophy.  We 
persist  in  asking,  all  threats  to  the  contrary  notwith- 
standing, just  how  and  why  and  in  what  sense  the 
external  world  can  be  known  to  us,  if  indeed  this 
conception  itself  of  an  external  world  is  justly 
formed  at  all. 

Yet  we  grant  that  the  full  force  and  need  and 
bitterness  of  our  problem  may  not  be  plain  to  the 
reader,  unless  he  has  first  undertaken  to  examine 
with  us  at  some  length  the  philosophic  character 
and  consequences  of  this  popular  metaphysical  con- 
ception of  the  external  world.  To  get  him  to  share 


THE   WORLD   OF   DOUBT.  235 

well  our  doubt,  we  must  first  provisionally  accept 
this  notion  of  popular  metaphysics  itself.  We  must 
waive  for  the  moment  our  difficulty,  that  it  may  re- 
cur to  us  with  greater  importance  by  and  by.  Let 
the  reader  once  come  to  see  that  this  popular  notion 
of  an  external  world  is  an  utterly  vague  conception, 
capable  of  numberless  forms,  and  religiously  unsat- 
isfactory in  all  of  them,  and  then  we  shall  expect 
him  to  feel  the  force  of  the  deeper  philosophic  prob- 
lems involved.  This  present  chapter  will  therefore 
proceed  directly  to  an  examination  of  the  popular 
notions  about  the  external  world.  We  shall  exam- 
ine them,  namely,  to  find  whether  they  offer  any 
religious  aspect.  We  shall  find  that  they  do  not 
offer  any  such  aspect  in  any  satisfactory  sense. 
That  the  good  is  supreme  in  the  external  world  as 
popularly  conceived,  nobody  can  establish.  This 
supposed  external  world  is  once  for  all  a  World  of 
Doubt,  and  in  it  there  is  no  abiding  place.  When 
the  reader  has  come  to  feel  with  us  this  truth,  then 
he  will  be  ready  to  look  deeper  into  the  matter. 
Then  some  other  more  genuinely  philosophic  con- 
ception of  Reality  will  have  its  place.  Hence  in 
the  rest  of  this  chapter  we  shall  be  accepting  pro- 
visionally notions  that  we  are  hereafter  to  reject, 
and  assuming  much  on  trust  that  is  at  best  very 
doubtful.  We  shall  show  that,  even  so  aided,  the 
popular  notions  about  the  religious  aspect  of  this 
world  cannot  bear  criticism.  This  visible  world  of 
popular  faith  will  lose  its  worth  for  us.  We  shall 
have  to  look  elsewhere. 

The  religious  significance  once  removed  from  the 


236         THE   RELIGIOUS   ASPECT   OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

popular  realistic  philosophy,  with  its  crudely  meta- 
physical notion  of  things,  we  shall  be  ready  to  listen 
to  skepticism  about  the  foundations  of  this  notion ; 
and  we  shall  be  ready  for  some  new  conception. 
This  new  conception  will  indeed*  not  falsify  the  true 
moral  meaning  of  that  innocent  faith  in  a  real  world 
upon  which  we  have  so  far  depended  in  our  research. 
The  popular  notion  of  an  external  world,  practically 
useful  for  many  purposes,  and  sufficient  for  many 
scientific  ends,  will  be  refuted  and  rejected  in  its 
contradictions  and  in  its  absurdities,  but  the  soul  of 
truth  that  is  in  it  will  be  absorbed  into  a  higher 
conception  both  of  the  eternal  Reality  and  of  our 
relation  thereto.  Our  seeming  loss  will  become  our 
gain.  That  bad  dream,  the  dead  and  worthless 
World  of  Doubt  in  which  most  of  our  modern  teach- 
ers remain  stuck  fast,  will  be  transformed  for  us. 
We  shall  see  that  the  truth  of  it  is  a  higher  World, 
of  glorious  religious  significance. 

So  for  the  first  we  turn  to  that  supposed  world  of 
popular  metaphysics,  to  test  its  religious  value.  It  is 
conceived  as  a  world  existent  in  space  and  time,  and 
as  a  world  of  real  things  which  act  and  interact.  For 
convenience  sake,  we  shall  in  the  following  use  the 
word  Power  to  mean  any  one  of  these  things,  or  any 
group  of  them,  that  in  this  external  world  may  be 
supposed  to  produce  effects  upon  any  other  thing  or 
group  of  things.  However  these  Powers  get  their  ef- 
ficiency, the  religious  significance  of  the  supposed  ex- 
ternal world,  if  it  has  any,  must  lie  in  the  supremacy 
of  the  Good  in  this  world  of  the  Powers.  One  must 
then  view  this  external  world  historically  as  a  mass 


THE  WORLD   OF  DOUBT.  237 

of  Powers,  which  work  together  in  harmony  or  in 
discord,  and  which  give  you  Products.  The  religious 
ideals  must  find  satisfaction  here,  if  at  all,  in  con- 
templating the  goodness  of  these  powers  and  of  their 
works.  If  the  religious  ideals  here  fail,  there  will 
be  the  other  aspect  open.  Regarded  in  a  truly  phil- 
osophical way,  and  in  its  eternal  nature,  the  world, 
as  we  shall  hereafter  come  to  see,  cannot  be  supposed 
to  be  either  a  power  or  a  heap  of  powers.  For  pow- 
ers have  their  being  only  in  time,  and  only  in  rela- 
tion to  one  another.  If  then  all  fails  when  we  con- 
sider this  external  world  of  powers,  this  figment  of 
popular  metaphysics,  the  eternal  nature  of  reality  in 
some  deeper  view  of  that  nature  may  still  be  found 
of  infinite  value  to  us.  In  fact  we  shall  find  the 
search  for  a  religious  truth,  among  the  powers  of  this 
popularly  conceived  external  world,  very  dishearten- 
ing. The  jargon  of  their  contending  voices  will  not 
unite  into  any  religious  harmony.  We  shall  find 
these  powers  like  the  thunder  and  the  fire.  The  still 
small  voice  is  not  in  them.  We  shall  be  driven  to 
some  other  aspect  of  the  world.  We  shall  approach 
that  aspect  in  ways  that  imply  no  disrespect  to  those 
who  have  been  so  long  scientifically  studying  the 
history  and  forces  of  the  assumed  external  world. 
Their  results,  with  the  practical  consequences  in  daily 
life,  and  with  all  that  Agnosticism  about  the  nature 
and  purposes  of  the  powers  of  this  visible  world 
which  such  men  nowadays  feel  bound  to  proclaim, 
we  shall  on  the  whole  accept.  We  too  shall  be  Ag- 
tics,  namely,  as  to  the  powers  that  rule  the  visible 
world.  But  we  shall  find  a  very  different  way,  un- 


238         THE   RELIGIOUS   ASPECT    OF   PHILOSOPHY. 

trodden  by  scientific  research,  and  yet,  we  hope,  not 
a  way  of  mere  dreams,  not  a  way  into  a  world  of 
fancy,  but  a  way  that  leads  us  to  a  point  whence  we 
get  a  glimpse  into  that  other  aspect  of  things.  This 
way  Modern  Idealism  since  Kant  has  been  busy  in 
finding  and  clearing.  How  wearisome  some  of  the 
exploring  expeditions  have  been,  we  well  know.  Our 
search  also  may  end  in  a  wilderness ;  but  we  fancy 
ourselves  to  have  found  an  open  path  that  to  some 
readers  will  seem  at  least  in  part  new.  And  some 
of  the  prospects  on  that  road  may  not  be  wholly  dis- 
heartening, even  to  the  most  exacting  religious 
seeker.  But  all  this  is  anticipation.  First  then : 
The  World  as  a  theatre  for  the  display  of  power, 
physical  or  metaphysical.  This  is  the  World  of 
Doubt. 

II. 

Let  us  begin  our  study  of  the  powers  that  work  to- 
gether in  the  supposed  external  reality,  by  accepting 
for  a  moment,  without  criticism,  the  notion  of  this 
supposed  external  world  from  which  scientific  expe- 
rience sets  out.  Let  us  say :  there  it  is,  an  objective 
world  of  moving  matter,  subject  to  certain  laws.  All 
the  powers  are  but  manifestations  or  forms  of  mat- 
ter in  motion.  Planets  revolve,  comets  come  and  go, 
tides  swell  and  fall,  clouds  rise  and  rivers  flow  to  the 
sea,  lightning  flashes,  volcanoes  are  active,  living  be- 
ings are  born,  live,  and  die,  all  exemplifying  certain 
universal  principles,  that  are  discoverable  by  experi- 
ence, that  are  capable  of  being  used  to  predict  the 
future,  and  that  are  related  to  one  another  in  such  a 


THE   WORLD   OF   DOUBT.  239 

way  as  to  show  us  a  vast  connected  whole,  the  nat- 
ural universe.  This  matter  however  is  dead  ;  these 
laws  are  ultimate  given  truths.  We  did  not  make 
them,  cannot  see  why  just  they  and  none  other  were 
from  the  beginning ;  we  must  accept  them  as  they 
are.  The  whole  world  is  a  vast  machine.  A  mind 
powerful  enough  might  be  possessed  of  the  knowl- 
edge that  La  Place,  and,  in  our  own  generation,  Prof. 
Du  Bois  Eeymond,  have  so  finely  described  as  the 
scientific  ideal.  Such  a  mind  might  have  an  univer- 

o 

sal  formula,  in  its  possession,  a  key  to  the  mysteries 
of  the  succession  of  phenomena.  Such  a  being  could 
then,  using  this  formula,  calculate  all  events,  as  as- 
tronomers now  predict  eclipses.  At  every  instant 
multitudes  of  air  pulsations  quiver  about  us.  These, 
in  all  their  forms,  our  mind  possessed  of  this  univer- 
sal formula,  would  have  been  able  to  predict  ages 
ago,  just  as  certainly  as  you  now  can  predict  that  the 
sun  will  rise  to-morrow  morning.  All  is  predeter- 
mined :  the  glitter  of  every  ice  crystal  on  your  frozen 
window-panes  on  a  winter  morning,  the  quiver  of 
every  muscle  in  the  death  agony  of  the  fish  that  you 
pull  out  of  a  mountain-stream,  the  falling  of  every 
yellow  leaf  in  the  autumn  woods,  —  each  of  these 
events  could  have  been  foreseen,  mathematically  cal- 
culated, and  fully  described,  by  one  able  to  use  the 
universal  formula,  and  possessed,  myriads  of  aeons 
ago,  of  an  exact  knowledge  of  the  positions  of  the 
atoms  of  the  original  nebula  from  which  our  great 
stellar  system  condensed.  Such  is  the  natural  world. 
What  religious  aspect  can  this  vast  machine  pos- 
sess ?  What  room  is  there  for  a  higher  element  to 


240         THE   RELIGIOUS    ASPECT    OF   PHILOSOPHY. 

be  introduced  into  this  mass  of  dead  mathematical 
facts?  The  answer  of  some  representatives  of  sci- 
ence in  our  day  is  well  known  to  us.  Whatever  else 
is  doubtful,  say  such  men,  there  stands  fast  the  great 
law  of  progress.  Evolution  in  the  physical  world 
becomes  actual  progress  in  the  world  of  human  life. 
The  world,  under  the  influence  of  all  these  far-reach- 
ing laws,  is  actually  growing  forever  better.  Thus 
natural  law  agrees  with  morality.  Thus  there  is  a  re- 
ligious aspect  to  the  mechanical  laws  of  the  universe. 

Let  us  consider  once  more  the  law  of  progress. 
We  spoke  of  it  in  a  previous  chapter.  There  it  did 
not  help  us.  For  we  wanted  to  agree  upon  the  na- 
ture of  morality.  We  were  not  helped  towards  such 
agreement  by  the  knowledge  that  there  is  in  the 
world  a  physical  evolution.  For  we  could  not  tell 
what  ought  to  be,  merely  by  considering  what  is. 
We  had  first  to  agree  upon  a  moral  law,  before  we 
could  decide  whether  evolution  is  actually  progress. 
But  now,  perhaps,  we  can  make  use  of  the  law  of 
evolution  to  aid  our  inquiry  into  the  religious  aspect 
of  reality.  For  now,  having  defined  what  the  good 
is,  we  may  estimate  whether  the  world  is  growing  to- 
ward the  good.  And  if  the  world  is  'morally  pro- 
gressing, then  one  great  demand  of  the  religious  con- 
sciousness is  fulfilled.  Then  there  is  a  power  not 
ourselves  that  works  for  righteousness.  Or  is  this 
really  the  consequence  of  the  law  of  evolution  ? 

The  first  answer  is  that  if  there  is  any  tendency 
at  work  in  the  world  that  as  time  goes  on  more  and 
more  helps  men  in  their  struggle  towards  morality, 
this  tendency  is  indeed,  as  far  as  it  goes,  what  we 


THE  WORLD   OF  DOUBT.  241 

want  to  find.  And  if  such  a  tendency  is  found,  as 
we  are  told,  in  evolution,  the  result  is  in  just  so 
far  encouraging.  Although  the  external  world  still 
often  hinders  moral  growth,  yet,  we  are  told,  as  evo- 
lution reaches  higher  and  higher  stages,  the  world 
comes  to  harmonize  more  and  more  with  man's  moral 
growth.  This  also  seems  to  be  what  we  seek.  In 
time  morality  will  become  a  natural  product  of  early 
childhood.  Men  will  be  born  with  characters  that 
we  now  seek  in  vain  to  develop  by  a  life-time  of  la- 
bor. Natural  evolution,  then,  does  help  moral  prog- 
ress, and  the  world  is  more  moral  to-day  than  ever 
before.  This  then  is  to  be  the  religious  aspect  of 
the  outer  world.  Does  it  contain  enough  of  the  truth 
of  things  to  content  us  ? 

We  are  far  from  doubting  the  scientific  worth  of 
the  natural  laws  that  have  been  discovered  of  late 
years,  and  that  have  made  so  clear  to  us  the  great 
truth  of  far-reaching  physical  evolution.  But  let  us 
reflect  before  we  accept  these  facts  as  furnishing  any 
deeply  important  contribution  to  our  present  prob- 
lem. We  thoroughly  believe  in  evolution ;  but  we 
must  take,  in  these  matters,  a  very  high  position. 
If  the  world  of  powers  apart  from  man  is  to  have  a 
religious  aspect,  then  this  aspect  must  belong  to  this 
world  as  a  whole.  A  minor  power  for  good  is  not 
enough.  It  will  not  suffice  to  find  that  one  bit  of 
reality  fights  for  our  moral  needs  while  another  bit 
of  reality  fights  against  them,  unless  we  can  in  some 
way  harmonize  these  conflicting  aspects,  or  unless 
we  can  show  that  they  that  be  with  us  are  not  only 
more  important  or  significant  than  they  that  be 

16 


242         THE   RELIGIOUS    ASPECT    OF   PHILOSOPHY. 

against  us,  but  are  really  the  deepest  truth  of  things. 
Else  we  shall  be  left  face  to  face  with  a  gloomy  world 
of  conflict,  where  the  good  and  bad  are  mingled  in 
hopeless  confusion.  If  such  a  world  is  the  fact,  we 
must  accept  that  fact ;  but  we  cannot  then  say  that 
we  have  made  sure  of  an  answer  to  our  religious 
needs.  Now  suppose  that  in  examining  the  world 
we  found  two  tendencies  at  work,  equally  fundamen- 
tal, equally  active,  fairly  balanced  in  power,  produc- 
ing in  the  long  run  equally  permanent,  equally  tran- 
sient results,  but  always  in  deadly  antagonism  to  each 
other,  the  one  making  for  moral  goodness,  the  other 
for  moral  evil.  Suppose  that  the  world  appeared  as 
the  theatre  and  the  result  of  this  struggle  of  the  good 
and  of  the  evil  principles,  could  we  say  that  we  had 
found  in  these  facts  a  religious  aspect  of  reality  ? 
We  should  hardly  answer  in  the  affirmative.  So 
long  as  we  must  fix  our  minds  on  this  struggle  of 
equally  balanced  powers,  we  could  not  find  the  world 
a  religiously  encouraging  vision.  We  should  either 
have  to  regard  the  world  in  some  other  and  higher 
aspect,  or  we  should  have  to  give  up  regarding  it  as 
religiously  interesting.  An  answer  to  our  moral 
needs  that  is  drowned  by  a  hubbub  of  opposing 
noises  can  be  no  harmonious  song.  Now  we  affirm 
that  so  long  as  you  look  upon  the  world  as  a  growth 
in  time,  as  a  product  of  natural  forces,  as  an  histor- 
ical development,  you  can  never  make  it  certain,  or 
even  probable,  that  this  world  is  not  such  a  scene  of 
endless  warfare.  Hence  the  progress  that  you  may 
observe  can  never  overbalance  the  probability  that 
this  progress  is  a  transient  and  insignificant  fact,  in 


THE   WORLD   OF  DOUBT.  243 

the  midst  of  a  chaos  of  confused  tendencies.  There- 
fore progress  on  this  planet  for  a  few  thousands  or 
millions  of  years  indicates  nothing  about  any  true 
harmony  between  nature  and  morality. 

Let  us  call  attention  to  one  aspect,  well-known, 
yet  often  neglected  in  recent  discussions  of  a  few 
familiar  facts.  Modern  science  is  justly  sure  of 
physical  evolution,  but  is  no  less  sure  that  evolu- 
tion on  this  planet  is  a  process  that  began  at  a 
period  distant  by  a  finite  and  in  fact  by  a  not  very 
great  time  from  the  present  moment.  That  our 
planet  was  a  nebulous  mass  at  a  date  at  most  some- 
where between  twenty  millions  and  one  hundred  mil- 
lions of  years  ago,  we  have  all  heard,  and  we  have 
also  had  explained  to  us  some  of  the  proofs  of  this 
fact.  Our  planet  is  still  imperfectly  cooled.  At  a 
comparatively  recent  period  in  the  history  of  this 
stellar  universe,  this  little  point  of  it  was  a  spheroid 
of  glowing  vapor,  from  which  the  moon  had  not  yet 
been  separated.  The  present  heat  of  the  earth  is  an 
indication  of  its  youth.  Furthermore,  what  our 
planet  is  to  become  in  time,  the  moon  itself  tells  us, 
having  cooled,  by  reason  of  its  small  size,  more  rap- 
idly than  we  have  done.  Cold  and  dead,  waterless, 
vaporless,  that  little  furrowed  mass  of  rock  deso- 
lately rolls  through  its  slow  days,  looking  with  pas- 
sionless stare  at  our  stormy,  ardent  earth,  full  of  mo- 
tion and  of  suffering.  What  that  mass  is,  our  earth 
shall  become.  And  progress  here  will  cease  with 
the  tides.  All  these  are  the  commonplaces  of  pop- 
ular science.  Progress  then,  as  we  know  it  here,  is 
a  fact  of  transient  significance.  Physical  nature 


244         THE   RELIGIOUS  ASPECT   OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

permits  progress  rather  than  renders  it  necessary. 
Progress  is  an  incident  of  a  certain  thermal  process, 
a  kind  of  episode  in  the  history  of  the  dissipation 
of  the  energy  of  our  particular  mass  of  matter,  and 
thus,  in  so  far  as  we  yet  know,  a  present  occurrence 
just  in  our  neighborhood,  a  local  item  in  the  news  of 
the  universe.  Now  these  are  the  familiar  facts  whose 
meaning  we  want  to  enforce  in  an  often  neglected 
aspect. 

But,  one  says,  all  this  has  been  anticipated  hun- 
dreds of  times.  It  is  really  unfair  to  insist  upon 
such  things.  For  at  least  here,  at  least  now,  the 
world  does  realize  our  moral  needs  by  showing  us 
progress.  Is  not  this  all  that  we  need?  May  we 
not  be  content  with  the  few  millions  of  years  of 
growth  that  remain  to  our  race  before  the  earth 
grows  cold  ?  Is  it  not  foolish  to  look  into  futurity 
so  curiously  ?  What  matters  it  whether  chaos  comes 
again  in  far-off  ages  ? 

But  we  still  insist.  We  desire,  vainly  or  justly, 
yet  ardently,  that  the  world  shall  answer  to  our 
moral  needs  not  by  accident,  not  by  the  way,  not  for 
a  time,  but  from  its  own  nature  and  forever.  If  we 
can  see  that  present  progress  is  an  indication  of  the 
nature  of  the  universe,  that  the  present  is  a  symbol 
or  a  specimen  of  eternity,  we  shall  be  content.  But 
if  this  is  not  so,  if  present  progress  is  seen  to  be  a 
mere  accident,  an  eddy  in  the  stream  of  atoms,  then 
present  progress  is  a  pleasant  fact  to  contemplate, 
but  not  a  fact  of  any  deep  significance.  Still  we 
shall  be  crying  in  the  darkness  for  support  and  find- 
ing none.  For  nature  will  say  to  each  of  us :  "I 


THE   WORLD   OF  DOUBT.  245 

give  support  to  thy  moral  needs  so  long  as  the  tem- 
perature of  thy  earth  crust  is  high  enough  to  prevent 
thy  oceans  from  being  absorbed,  so  long  as  the  ra- 
diant heat  of  the  sun  is  given  out  in  sufficient  quan- 
tities to  keep  thee  warm.  When  the  next  stage  is 
reached,  I  propose  to  freeze  and  to  dry  thy  fair 
home  and  all  thy  moral  needs,  until  there  shall  be 
nothing  found  on  thy  planet  lovelier  than  the  ruined 
crags  of  thy  hills  as  they  glimmer  in  the  last  red 
rays  of  a  torpid  sun.  What  is  thy  progress  to  me?" 
Notice  then  where  our  real  difficulty  lies.  The  as- 
pect of  the  facts  that  we  now  mean  is  this.  It  is 
not  because  progress  is  to  endure  on  this  planet  for 
a  short  or  for  a  long  time,  but  because  the  world  in 
which  this  progress  is  so  to  end  seems,  thus  re- 
gardgd,  wholly  indifferent  to  progress, — this  is  the 
gloomy  aspect.  To-day,  even  while  progress  is  so 
swift  and  sure,  at  this  moment,  we  are  living  in  a 
world  for  which,  as  science  displays  it  to  us,  this 
progress  is  as  indifferent  and  unessential  as  the 
fleeting  hues  of  an  evaporating  soap-bubble.  Is  the 
physical  fact  of  progress,  thus  regarded,  a  moral 
help  to  us  ? 

Yet  men  turn  away  from  these  plain  and  often- 
mentioned  facts  to  all  sorts  of  fantastic  dreams  of  a 
coming  golden  age.  They  make  of  future  humanity 
a  saintly  people,  living  in  devotion,  or  a  merry  peo- 
ple, always  dancing  to  waltzes  yet  undreamt  of,  or  a 
scientific  people,  calculating  by  some  higher  algebra 
the  relative  positions  and  motions  of  the  molecules 
in  the  rocks  on  the  other  side  of  the  moon.  Every 
dream  of  progress  is  to  be  realized  in  that  blessed 


246    THE  RELIGIOUS  ASPECT  OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

time,  and  we  are  invited  to  praise  a  nature  that 
could  produce  all  this  blessedness  by  pure  physical 
law.  Now  we  must  indeed  wish  well  for  the  men  of 
the  year  A.  D.  1,000,000,  but  we  can  receive  no  re- 
ligious support  from  the  knowledge  that  if  all  goes 
right  and  if  the  sun  keeps  well  at  work,  the  men  of 
that  time  will  be  better  than  we  are.  For  still  the 
world  as  a  whole  gives  no  support  to  our  real  moral 
needs,  for  only  by  a  happy  accident  will  this  blessed- 
ness be  possible.  Or,  in  short,  two  tendencies  are 
seen  before  us  in  the  world,  one  working  for  evo- 
lution, for  concentration  of  energy  in  living  beings, 
for  increase  of  their  powers,  for  progress  ;  the  other 
for  dissipation  of  energy,  for  death,  for  the  destruc- 
tion of  all  that  is  valuable  on  our  earth.  We  learn 
that  the  latter  tendency  has  triumphed  quite  .near 
us,  on  the  moon.  We  hear  that  it  is  certain  in 
time  to  triumph  on  the  earth,  and  that  the  other  ten- 
dency is  to  be  only  of  transient  superiority.  We 
know  that  its  present  predominance  here  is,  phys- 
ically speaking,  a  happy  accident,  which  a  cosmical 
catastrophe  might  at  any  moment  bring  to  an  end. 
And  now  we  are  asked  to  see  in  this  combination  of 
facts  a  religious  aspect.  For  the  writer's  part,  he 
refuses  to  regard  it  as  anything  but  an  interesting 
study  in  physics.  He  delights  in  it  as  science,  but 
it  has  nothing  to  do  with  religion.  Yet  some  people 
talk  of  a  Religion  of  Evolution. 

But  no  doubt  believers  in  universal  progress  are 
ready  with  hypotheses  that  shall  show  how  signifi- 
cant a  fact  progress  really  is.  A  world  that  has 
progressed  so  many  millions  of  years  doubtless  has 


THE  WORLD   OF  DOUBT.  247 

resources  of  which  we  know  nothing.  There  are  all 
the  stars  with  their  vast  stores  of  energy.  Possibly 
they  are  infinite  in  number.  Progress  ceasing  just 
here  may  flash  out  in  renewed  brilliancy  elsewhere. 
Who  knows  what  is  in  store  for  the  future,  when 
the  present  seemingly  chaotic  arrangement  of  the 
stars  gives  way  to  vastly  higher  organized  systems 
of  interacting  bodies,  in  whose  light  life  shall  flour- 
ish eternally  ? 

Well,  all  this  we  can  all  fancy  as  well  as  our 
scientific  neighbors.  Nobody  would  call  such  dreams 
scientific,  but  they  are  logically  possible  dreams, 
and  they  are  very  beautiful.  But  they  have  one 
terrible  negative  consideration  against  them.  This 
progress  is  either  conceived  as  having  gone  on 
through  infinite  past  time,  or  else  it  has  no  genuine 
significance  for  the  true  nature  of  the  universe.  A 
world  that  has  now  grown,  now  decayed,  that  has 
sometimes  progressed,  sometimes  become  worse,  is  a 
world  in  which  progress  is  an  accident,  not  an  essen- 
tial feature.  But  now,  if  progress  has  gone  on 
through  infinite  time,  it  has  so  gone  on  as  to  make 
possible,  after  all  this  infinite  time,  just  the  misery 
and  imperfection  that  we  see  about  us.  Let  us  re- 
member that  fact.  This  poor  life  of  ours  is  in  the 
supposed  case  the  outcome  of  infinite  ages  of  growth. 
That  must  be  our  hypothesis,  if  we  are  to  cling  to 
progress  as  an  essential  truth  about  the  world.  Very 
well  then,  all  our  temptations,  all  our  weakness,  our 
misery,  our  ignorance  —  the  infinite  past  ages  have 
ended  in  fashioning  them.  Our  diseases,  our  fears, 
and  our  sins  —  are  they  perfect  ?  If  not,  then  what 


248         THE   RELIGIOUS   ASPECT    OF   PHILOSOPHY. 

is  the  meaning  of  endless  progress  toward  perfec- 
tion ?  For  we  are  an  outcome  of  this  infinite  prog- 
ress. Another  infinity  of  progress  is  not  certain 
then  to  remove  such  imperfections.  Here  is  prog- 
ress put  to  the  simple  test.  Is  it  the  removal  of 
evil  ?  Then  can  infinite  progress,  as  facts  show  us, 
pass  by  with  evil  yet  unremoved.  And  if  progress 
is  not  the  removal  of  evil,  then  what  means  prog- 
ress ?  Is  not  the  temporary  removal  of  evil  more 
probably  a  mere  occasional  event  in  the  history  of 
the  world? 

It  is  surprising  that  we  ever  think  of  talking 
about  universal  progress  as  an  essential  fact  of  the 
popularly  conceived  external  world.  If  nothing  cer- 
tain can  be  made  out  about  it,  still  the  world  as  a 
whole  seems,  as  far  as  we  can  judge  by  the  above 
considerations,  so  indifferent  to  progress,  that  it  is 
marvelous  to  behold  the  religious  comfort  that,  in 
their  shallow  optimistic  faith,  so  many  amiable  peo- 
ple take,  while  they  wax  fervent  over  the  thought  of 
progress.  Let  us  have  clear  ideas  about  the  matter. 
What  is  in  the  true  nature  of  reality  is  as  eternal 
as  reality  itself.  Then  progress  is  either  an  unes- 
sential, insignificant  aspect  of  reality,  or  it  is  eter- 
nal. If  progress  has  been  eternal,  then  either  the 
world  was  in  the  beginning  infinitely  bad,  or  else 
infinite  progress  has  been  unable  to  remove  from  the 
world  the  finite  quantity  of  evil  that  was  always  in 
it.  For  here  in  the  empirical  world  is  evil  now  —  if 
indeed  there  is  any  empirical  world  at  all  —  plenty 
of  evil  unremoved. 

If  you  found  a  man  shoveling  sand  on  the  sea- 


THE   WORLD    OF   DOUBT.  249 

shore,  and  wheeling  it  away  to  make  an  embank- 
ment, and  if  you  began  to  admire  his  industry,  see- 
ing how  considerable  a  mass  of  sand  he  had  wheeled 
away,  and  how  little  remained  in  the  sand-hill  on 
which  he  was  working,  you  might  still  check  your- 
self to  ask  hirn  :  "  How  long,  O  friend,  hast  thou 
been  at  work  ?  "  And  if  he  answered  that  he  had 
been  wheeling  away  there  from  all  eternity,  and 
was  in  fact  an  essential  feature  of  the  universe,  you 
would  not  only  inwardly  marvel  at  his  mendacity, 
but  you  would  be  moved  to  say  :  "  So  be  it,  O  friend, 
but  thou  must  then  have  been  from  all  eternity  an  in- 
finitely lazy  fellow."  Might  we  not  venture  to  suspect 
the  same  of  our  law  of  universal  physical  progress  ? 

But  let  us  already  hint  by  anticipation  one  fur- 
ther thought.  Why  is  not  any  purely  historical  view 
of  the  world  open  to  the  same  objection  ?  If  the  his- 
tory began  by  some  arbitrary  act  of  will  at  some 
time  not  very  long  since,  then  this  history,  viewed 
by  itself  apart  from  the  creative  act,  may  be  intelli- 
gible enough  in  its  inner  unity  and  significance,  al- 
though an  arbitrary  act  of  will  can  be  no  true  expla- 
nation. But  the  whole  physical  world  cannot  be 
regarded  at  once  as  a  complete,  self -existent  whole, 
with  an  eternity  of  past  life,  and  as,  in  its  deepest 
truth,  an  historical  process  of  any  sort.  For  it  is  of 
the  essence  of  an  intelligible  historical  process  to 
have,  like  a  tragedy  in  Aristotle's  famous  account  of 
tragedy,  a  beginning,  a  middle,  and  an  end.  An  in- 
finite series  of  successive  acts  cannot  be  one  organic 
historical  process.  Either  this  everlasting  series  of 
facts  has  no  significance  at  all,  or  else  it  must  have 


250         THE   RELIGIOUS  ASPECT    OF   PHILOSOPHY. 

had  essentially  the  same  significance  all  the  way 
along.  So,  if  the  world  is  infinite  in  time,  it  can- 
not as  a  whole  have,  strictly  speaking,  any  history. 
The  longest  continued  story  in  the  most  thrilling  of 
the  cheap  weeklies  reaches,  as  we  are  given  to  un- 
derstand, a  conclusion  at  some  time.  Imagine  an 
infinite  continued  story,  with  the  poor  lovers  eter- 
nally weeping  and  quarreling,  and  you  will  see  what 
an  infinite  historical  process  in  the  world  would 
mean.  It  would  of  course  be  an  eternal  repetition 
of  the  same  thing,  no  story  at  all.  If  the  world,  re- 
garded in  time,  cannot  as  a  whole  have  any  genuine 
history  at  all,  it  is  then  hopeless  to  look  in  the 
world's  history,  as  distinct  from  the  world's  nature, 
for  anything  of  fundamental  religious  significance. 

And  so  we  are  thrown  back  to  our  starting-point. 
This  splendid  conception  of  science,  this  world  of 
unalterable  mechanical  law,  in  which  all  things  that 
happen  are  predetermined  from  all  eternity,  this 
mathematical  machine,  has  a  real  history  no  more 
than  the  ebbing  and  flowing  sea-tides  would  have 
from  day  to  day  any  history,  apart  from  the  fact 
that  they  once  did  not  so  ebb  and  flow  at  all.  Eter- 
nally repeated  rhythms,  or  ceaseless  new  combi- 
nations of  elements,  clash  of  atoms,  quiver  of  ether 
waves,  mechanical  changes  forever ;  but  no  eternal 
progress,  no  historical  sense  to  the  whole,  —  that 
seems  the  conception  of  the  physical  world  as  a 
whole  to  which  we  are  driven.  It  is  a  strictly  math- 
ematical, a  physically  intelligible,  conception,  but 
what  religious  significance  has  it  ?  Yet  such  is  the 
conception  that  we  must  have  of  any  eternal  phys- 
ical process. 


THE  WORLD   OF  DOUBT.  251 

We  have  gone  through  this  thorny  path  of  prob- 
lems, because  we  want  already  to  indicate  one  thing 
as  the  result  of  it  all,  namely,  that  not  what  the 
present  world  has  come  from,  not  what  it  is  becom- 
ing, not  what  it  will  be  by  and  by,  but  what  it  eter- 
nally is,  must  furnish  us  with  the  deepest  religious 
aspect  of  reality.  All  else  is  subordinate.  We  do 
not  care  so  much  to  know  what  story  anybody  has 
to  tell  us  about  what  has  happened  in  the  world,  as 
to  know  what  of  moral  worth  always  is  in  the  world, 
so  that  whatever  has  happened  or  will  happen  may 
possess  a  religious  significance  dependent  on  its  rela- 
tion to  this  reality.  That  which  changes  not,  wherein 
is  no  variableness,  neither  shadow  of  turning,  that 
must  give  us  the  real  religious  truth  upon  which  all 
else  will  depend.  A  particular  event  in  the  world 
may  have  a  religious  significance,  but  that  signifi- 
cance will  depend  on  the  relation  of  this  event  to 
eternal  truth.  And  the  eternal  truth  is  what  we 
want  to  know. 

Therefore  our  search  will  become  somewhat  nar- 
rowed, whenever  at  least  we  grow  fully  convinced  of 
this  truth.  The  "  power  that  makes  for  righteous- 
ness "  will  become  a  conception  of  doubtful  religious 
value.  An  eternal  power,  that  with  all  its  past 
eternity  of  work  cannot  yet  quite  vindicate  right- 
eousness ?  Perhaps  we  shall  have  to  find  the  relig- 
ious aspect  of  things  elsewhere.  But  let  us  leave,  at 
all  events,  the  world  of  pure  science. 

As  we  do  so  some  objector  may  interpose  the  as- 
sertion that  we  have  generalized  too  hastily  in  speak- 
ing of  the  insignificance  of  the  historical  aspect  of 


252         THE   RELIGIOUS   ASPECT   OF   PHILOSOPHY. 

things ;  for,  after  all,  we  have  been  talking  of  nat- 
ural science.  Let  us  turn  then  to  the  more  philo- 
sophical theories  of  the  powers  that  are  at  work  in 
this  supposed  external  world  of  metaphysics.  There 
are  philosophical  theories  that  try  to  show  us  of  what 
hidden  reality  this  mechanical  world  of  ours  is  the 
mere  appearance,  or  phenomenal  symbol.  Let  us 
see  if  any  of  them  can  give  a  religious  interpretation 
to  the  powers  that  rule  the  world. 


III. 

We  pass,  then,  from  the  scientific  to  the  more 
metaphysical  view  of  the  world.  What  can  we  hope 
from  realistic  metaphysics?  Let  us  first  consider 
the  value  of  that  philosophic  view  nowadays  most 
frequently  held,  namely,  what  in  general  is  called 
Monism.  We  hear  nowadays,  with  almost  weari- 
some repetition,  of  Matter  and  Spirit,  of  Force  and 
Intelligence,  of  Motion  and  Sensation,  as  being  op- 
posite aspects,  or  faces,  or  manifestations,  of  one  ul- 
timate Reality,  until  we  wonder  whether  clear  think- 
ing is  not  in  danger  of  losing  itself  altogether  in 
the  contemplation  of  a  mere  empty  form  of  words. 
From  whispers  and  low  mutterings  with  bated  breath 
about  the  inscrutable  mystery  of  the  ultimate  unity 
of  Being,  one  turns  with  satisfaction  to  efforts  to- 
wards some  intelligible  account  of  the  sense  in  which 
all  things  can  be  regarded  as  manifestations  of  one 
Power  or  actual  Existent.  Yet  in  truth  even  these 
efforts,  in  so  far  as  they  consider  the  world  of  the 
Powers,  have  thus  far  failed  to  satisfy  the  demands 


THE  WORLD   OF  DOUBT.  253 

of  criticism.  Where  they  are  clearly  stated  they  are 
inadequate.  Where  they  resort  to  figures  of  speech 
and  tell  us  about  the  two  sides  of  the  shield,  or  the 
convexity  and  concavity  of  the  same  curve,  as  illus- 
trations of  the  ultimate  oneness  of  nature  amid  the 
various  manifestations  of  experience,  there  these  ef- 
forts merely  sink  back  into  the  primitive  incoherency 
so  dear  to  all  pre-Kantian  metaphysics.  The  same 
curve  is,  indeed,  convex  and  concave ;  but  matter 
and  spirit  are  simply  not  the  two  faces  of  a  curve, 
and  the  relevant  circumstance  on  which  this  meta- 
phor turns  will  never  be  clear  to  us  until  we  learn, 
quite  literally,  wholly  apart  from  fables  about  shields, 
just  how,  in  what  sense,  and  by  what  evidence,  mat- 
ter and  mind  are  known  to  be  of  like  substance. 
And  that  we  must  do,  ere  this  hypothesis  can  have 
for  us  a  religious  value.  The  failure  of  dogmatic 
Monism,  if  it  should  take  place,  ought,  indeed,  not 
to  throw  us  over  into  the  arms  of  an  equally  dog- 
matic Dualism ;  but  we  must  refuse  to  accept  the 
monistic  hypothesis  until  it  has  been  freed  from  all 
trace  of  mysticism.  We  shall  here  follow  the  plan 
announced  at  the  outset  of  the  chapter,  and  confine 
our  attention  to  the  realistic  Monism,  that  regards 
the  events  in  the  external  world  as  the  results  of  the 
action  of  the  one  Power.  A  very  different  form  of 
monism  we  shall  ourselves  hereafter  maintain.  But 
just  now  we  deal  in  negations. 

Let  us  begin  with  the  attempts  that  have  been 
made  to  interpret  the  results  of  modern  physical  sci- 
ence in  a  monistic  sense,  by  regarding  the  ultimate 
physical  or  chemical  units  as  endowed  with  some 


254  THE   RELIGIOUS   ASPECT    OF    PHILOSOPHY. 

form  of  actual  or  potential  consciousness.  Organ- 
isms of  the  highest  sort  are  combinations  of  atoms. 
The  whole  is  the  sum  of  its  parts.  Why  may  not 
the  mental  possessions  of  these  highest  organisms 
be  the  sum  of  the  indefinitely  small  mental  powers 
of  the  atoms  ?  An  atom  in  motion  may  be  a  thought, 
or,  if  that  bo  saying  far  too  much  of  so  simple  a 
thing,  an  atom  in  motion  may  be,  or  may  be  endowed 
with,  an  infinitesimal  consciousness.  Billions  of 
atoms  in  interaction  may  have  as  their  resultant  quite 
a  respectable  little  consciousness.  Sufficiently  com- 
plex groups  of  these  atoms  of  Mind-Stuff  (to  use 
Professor  Clifford's  ingenious  terminology)  might 
produce  a  great  man.  One  shudders  to  think  of  the 
base  uses  to  which  the  noble  mind-stuff  of  Shake- 
speare might  return ;  but  the  theory  tries  to  be  an 
expression  of  natural  phenomena,  not  merely  an  aes- 
thetic creation,  and  must  not  pause  before  such  con- 
sequences. And,  if  it  be  the  truth,  might  it  not 
somehow,  no  matter  in  what  way,  be  made  of  relig- 
ious value  ?  Or  otherwise,  if  true,  might  it  not  end 
our  vain  search  for  a  religion  ? 

Such  is  an  outline  that  will  suggest  to  the  initiated 
thoughts  common  to  several  modern  theories  of  be- 
ing. Are  these  theories  in  a  fair  way  to  satisfy  crit- 
ical needs  ?  The  writer  is  not  satisfied  that  they 
are.  Time  does  not  permit  any  lengthy  discussion 
of  the  matter  here,  but  let  us  remind  ourselves  of  the 
considerations  that  will  most  readily  occur  to  any 
one  that  is  disposed  for  a  moment  to  accept  one  of 
these  modern  forms  of  monism.  Even  if  they  prom- 
ised us  the  religious  aspect  that  we  seek,  we  could 
not  accept  them.  As  it  is,  we  need  not  fear  them. 


THE  WORLD   OF  DOUBT.  255 

Can  our  consciousness  be  regarded  as  an  aggre- 
gate of  elementary  facts,  such  as  sensations  or  as 
atoms  of  pleasure  and  pain  ?  If  so,  what  aggregate 
of  sensations  forms  a  judgment,  such  as,  "  This  man 
is  my  father  ?  "  Evidently  here  is  indeed  an  aggre- 
gate of  sensations  represented,  but  also  something 
more.  What  is  this  more?  A  product,  it  may  be 
said,  formed  through  association  from  innumerable 
past  experiences.  Granted  for  the  moment ;  but  the 
question  is  not  as  to  the  origin  of  this  consciousness, 
but  as  to  its  analysis.  This  judgment,  whereby  a 
present  sensation  is  regarded  as  in  definite  relation 
to  real  past  experiences,  as  a  symbol,  not  merely  of 
actual  sensations  now  remembered,  not  merely  of  fu- 
ture sensations  not  yet  experienced,  but  of  a  reality 
wholly  outside  of  the  individual  consciousness,  this 
fact  of  acknowledging  something  not  directly  pre- 
sented as  nevertheless  real  —  is  this  act  possibly  to 
be  regarded  as  a  mere  aggregate  of  elementary  men- 
tal states?  Surely,  at  best,  the  act  can  be  so  re- 
garded only  in  the  sense  in  which  a  word  is  an  ag- 
gregate of  letters.  For  and  in  the  one  simple  mo- 
mentary consciousness,  all  these  elements  exist  as 
an  aggregate,  but  as  an  aggregate  formed  into  one 
whole,  as  the  matter  of  a  single  act.  But  in  them- 
selves, without  the  very  act  of  unity  in  which  they 
are  one,  these  elements  would  be  merely  an  aggre- 
gate, or,  in  Mr.  Gumey's  apt  words,1  "  a  rope  of 
sand."  Our  mental  life  then,  as  a  union  of  innum- 
erable elements  into  the  one  Self  of  any  moment,  is 
more  than  an  aggregate,  and  can  never  be  explained 
as  an  aggregate  of  elementary  atoms  of  sensation. 

1  Mind  for  April,  1881,  article,  "  Monism." 


256    THE  RELIGIOUS  ASPECT  OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

Nor  may  we  say  that  the  ultimate  atomic  states  of 
consciousness  may  be,  as  it  were,  chemically  united 
into  a  whole  that  is  more  than  an  aggregate.  Phys- 
ical atoms  in  space,  if  endowed  with  sufficiently 
numerous  affinities,  may  unite  into  what  wholes  you 
will;  but  a  mental  fact  is  a  mental  fact,  and  no 
more.  An  ultimate  independent  unit  of  conscious- 
ness, conceived  after  the  analogy  of  a  sensation,  can 
have  to  another  like  unit  only  one  of  three  relations : 
it  may  coexist  with  this  other  unit,  or  it  may  pre- 
cede or  follow  it  in  time.  There  is  no  other  relation 
possible.  Affinity,  or  attraction,  or  approach  of  one 
pain  or  pleasure,  of  one  sensation  of  pressure  or  of 
motion  to  another,  is  a  meaningless  jingle  of  words, 
unless,  indeed,  such  an  expression  is  used  to  name 
figuratively  the  relations  that  in  and  for  a  compar- 
ing, contrasting,  uniting,  and  separating  active  con- 
sciousness, two  ideas  are  made  to  bear.  Thus,  then, 
this  atomic  monism  brings  us  no  nearer  than  before 
to  the  relation  between  the  data  of  consciousness  and 
the  facts  of  physical  nature.  For  the  rest,  how  me- 
chanical science  can  be  satisfied  to  regard  its  mate- 
rial points  as  nothing  but  independently  existing 
fragments  of  mind,  whose  whole  being  is  intensive ; 
how,  out  of  these  intensive  units,  space-relations  are 
to  be  constructed  at  all  —  these  questions  we  may 
for  the  present  neglect.  Atomic  monism,  a  synthe- 
sis, or,  rather,  a  jumble  of  physiological  psychology 
with  doctrines  that  are  incompatible  with  any  sci- 
ence whatever,  has  never  answered  these  questions, 
and  doubtless  never  will. 

But  let  us  not  be  over-hasty.     There  are  other 


THE  WORLD  OF  DOUBT.  257 

forms  of  monism  now  extant.  The  purely  material- 
istic monism,  for  which  the  hard  and  extended  atoms 
of  naive  realism  are  already  and  in  themselves  po- 
tentially mind,  the  old-fashioned  materialism  of  days 
when  Mind-Stuff  and  physiological  psychology  were 
alike  undreamed  of,  may  indeed  be  neglected. 
That  doctrine  needed  not  critical  philosophy,  of  more 
than  a  very  undeveloped  sort,  to  do  away  with  it 
once  for  all.  Modern  monism  knows  of  supposed 
atoms  that  are  in  their  ultimate  nature  psychical ; 
and  of  supposed  psychical  forces  or  agents  that,  when 
seen  from  without,  behave  much  like  extended  atoms. 
But  the  old  fragment  of  matter  that,  being  no  more 
than  what  every  blacksmith  knows  as  matter,  was 
yet  to  be  with  all  its  impenetrability  and  its  inertia 
a  piece  of  the  soul,  has  been  banished  from  the  talk 
of  serious  philosophers.  There  remain,  then,  the 
numerous  efforts  that  see  in  the  world  the  expression 
of  psychical  powers  as  such,  not  mere  mind-stuff 
atoms,  but  organized  wholes,  related  in  nature  to 
what  we  know  by  internal  experience  as  mind,  yet 
higher  or  lower,  subtler  or  mightier,  wiser  or  more 
foolish,  than  the  human  intelligence.  These  views 
may  be  divided  into  two  classes :  those  that  see  in 
nature  the  manifestations  of  a  logical  or  intelligent 
power,  and  those  that  see  in  it  the  manifestations  of 
an  alogical  or  blind,  though  still  psychical  power. 
Each  of  these  classes  again  may  be  subdivided  ac- 
cording as  the  power  is  conceived  as  conscious  or  as 
unconscious  in  its  working.  How  do  these  ontolog- 
ical  efforts  stand  related  to  critical  thought  ? 

First  let  us  consider  logical  monism.     Since  hu- 

17 


258         THE   RELIGIOUS   ASPECT    OF   PHILOSOPHY. 

man  intelligence  is  itself  an  activity,  a  working  to- 
wards an  end,  and  since  the  logical  monist  thinks 
the  external  universe  after  the  analogy  of  the  human 
reason,  the  constant  tendency  is  for  him  to  conceive 
the  world  as  a  process  whereby  his  World  Spirit 
makes  actual  what  was  potential.  Modern  science, 
in  fact,  when  viewed  speculatively,  though  it  does  not 
confirm,  yet  lends  itself  easily  to  such  efforts,  and 
we  can  always,  if  we  choose,  imagine  the  evolution 
of  the  organic  kingdom  as  possibly  the  process  of 
self  -  manifestation  of  one  eternal  rational  Power. 
Only  in  this  way  we  are  very  far  from  a  satisfactory 
ontology.  A  world,  the  work  or  the  child  of  the  uni- 
versal reason,  developing  in  time,  how  can  any  re- 
flective mind  be  content  with  this  account  of  things  ? 
The  universal  reason  surely  means  something  by  its 
process,  surely  lacks  something  when  it  seeks  for 
higher  forms.  Now,  on  a  lower  stage  the  universal 
reason  has  not  yet  what  it  seeks,  on  the  higher  stage 
it  attains  what  it  had  not.  Whence  or  how  does  it 
obtain  this  something  ?  What  hindered  the  possible 
from  being  forthwith  actual  at  the  outset  ?  If  there 
was  any  hindrance,  was  this  of  the  same  nature  with 
the  universal  reason,  or  was  it  other?  If  other, 
then  we  are  plunged  into  a  Dualism,  and  the  good 
and  evil  principles  appear  once  more.  But  if  there 
was  no  external  hindrance,  no  illogical  evil  principle 
in  existence,  then  the  universal  reason  has  irration- 
ally gone  without  the  possible  perfection  that  it 
might  possess,  until,  after  great  labor,  it  has  made 
actual  what  it  never  ought  to  have  lacked.  The  in- 
finite Logos  thus  becomes  no  more  than  the  "  child 


THE  WORLD   OF   DOUBT,  259 

playing  with  bubbles "  of  the  old  philosopher. 
Everything  about  the  process  of  evolution  becomes 
intelligible  and  full  of  purpose  —  except  the  fact 
that  there  should  be  any  process  at  all  where  all  was 
in,  and  of,  and  for  the  universal  reason  at  the  outset. 
The  infinite  power  has  been  playing  with  perfection 
as  a  cat  with  a  mouse,  letting  it  run  away  a  few 
aeons  in  time,  that  it  might  be  caught  once  more  in  a 
little  chase,  involving  the  history  of  some  millions  of 
worlds  of  life.  Is  this  a  worthy  conception  ?  Nay, 
is  it  not  a  self  -  contradictory  one  ?  Evolution  and 
creative  Reason  —  are  they  compatible?  Yes,  in- 
deed, when  the  evolution  is  ended,  the  hurly-burly 
done,  the  battle  lost  and  won ;  but  meanwhile  —  ? 
In  short,  either  evolution  is  a  necessity,  one  of  the 
twelve  labors  of  this  Hercules-Absolute,  or  else  it  is 
irrational.  In  the  one  case  the  Absolute  must  be 
conceived  as  in  bonds,  in  the  other  case  the  Logos 
must  be  conceived  as  blundering.  Both  conceptions 
are  rank  nonsense:  This  kind  of  Monism  will  not 
satisfy  critical  demands. 

And  then  there  is  the  objection,  stated  by  Scho- 
penhauer, and  by  we  know  not  how  many  before 
him,  and  that  we  have  already  insisted  upon,  namely, 
that  every  historical  conception  of  the  world  as  a 
whole,  every  attempt  to  look  upon  Being  as  a  ra- 
tional process  in  time,  as  a  perpetual  evolution  from 
a  lower  to  a  higher,  is  beset  by  the  difficulty  that 
after  an  infinite  time  the  infinite  process  is  still  in 
a  very  early  stage.  Infinitely  progressing,  always 
growing  better,  and  yet  reaching  after  all  this  eter- 
nity of  work  only  the  incoherent,  troublous,  blind 


260         THE   RELIGIOUS   ASPECT    OF   PHILOSOPHY. 

imperfection  that  we  feel  in  ourselves,  and  that  we 
see  in  every  dung-heap  and  sick-room  and  govern- 
ment on  the  earth,  in  every  scattered  mass  of  nebu- 
lous matter,  in  every  train  of  meteor-fragments  in 
the  heavens  —  what  is  this  but  progress  without  a 
goal,  blind  toil?  The  world  would  be,  one  might 
think,  after  an  infinity  of  growth,  intensively  infi- 
nite at  every  point  of  its  extent.  We  mortals  see 
no  one  point  in  the  physical  universe  where  one 
viewing  things  as  we  in  this  chapter  have  chosen  to 
do,  namely,  from  outside,  might  lay  his  hand  and 
say :  Here  the  ideal  is  attained. 

Yet  we  should  be  very  far  from  dreaming  of  ac- 
cepting the  opposing  dogmatic  theorem,  the  antith- 
esis of  this  sublime  Antinomy,  namely,  "  The  world 
is  the  product  of  an  irrational  force.  The  One  is 
blind."  Schopenhauer  undertook  the  defense  of 
this  antithesis,  and,  in  bad  logic,  as  we  all  know,  he 
somewhat  surpassed  even  that  arch  blunderer,  the 
universal  Will  of  his  own  system.  This  Will,  after 
all,  desired  a  good  deal  of  trouble,  and  got  his  wish. 
But  Schopenhauer  desired  a  consistent  statement, 
and,  with  all  his  admirable  ingenuity  and  learning, 
he  produced  a  statement  whose  inconsistencies  have 
been  exposed  too  often  to  need  much  more  discus- 
sion. No  ;  to  the  defenders  of  the  alogical  hypoth- 
esis, as  a  dogmatic  doctrine,  it  has  not  yet  been 
given  to  make  out  more  than  the  purely  negative 
case  that  we  have  stated  above.  Dogmatic  panlo- 
gisin  can  be  assaulted,  with  much  show  of  success. 
The  opposite  doctrine  has  not  yet  been  dogmatically 
maintained  without  even  worse  confusion. 


THE   WORLD   OF   DOUBT.  261 

Panlogism  and  Alogism  are  difficult  enough  in 
themselves,  but  how  much  worse  becomes  their  con- 
dition when,  as  in  the  "  Philosophy  of  the  Uncon- 
scious," of  Von  Hartmann,  either  one  of  them,  or  a 
hybrid  of  the  two,  is  burdened  with  yet  another  hy- 
pothesis, namely,  that  the  One  Being  is  unconscious, 
and  yet  in  nature  psychical.  Founding  himself  on 
certain  physiological  facts,  very  doubtfully  inter- 
preted, on  a  monstrous  perversion  of  the  mathemat- 
ical theory  of  probabilities,  on  an  ingenious  view  of 
the  history  of  philosophy,  on  a  like  ingenious  criti- 
cism of  Kant,  Von  Hartmann  has  expounded  an  on- 
tological  doctrine  of  which,  after  all,  serious  thought 
can  make  nothing.  This  unconscious  being,  exist- 
ent not  for  itself,  for  it  is  conscious  of  nothing,  nor 
for  others,  because  all  else  is  a  part  of  it  (and,  for 
the  rest,  nobody  ever  thought  of  it  before  Von  Hart- 
mann), shall  be  the  maker  and  upholder  of  the  uni- 
verse. Surely  all  this  is  a  philosophy  of  round 
squares,  and  is  not  to  be  taken  very  seriously. 

Of  course  the  previous  criticism  is  absurdly  inad- 
equate to  the  magnitude  of  the  problems  involved, 
and  is  intended  only  as  the  merest  sketch,  dogmat- 
ically stated,  of  critical  objections  to  certain  ontolo- 
gies. Seeming  irreverence,  in  this  hasty  style  of 
doing  battle,  must  be  pardoned.  Only  against  im- 
perfect metaphysic  as  such  do  we  war.  Critical 
philosophy  holds  no  theoretical  opinion  sacred,  just 
as  it  regards  no  earnest  practical  faith  as  other  than 
sacred.  The  question  is  here  not  yet  what  we  are 
to  believe,  but  what  we  can  in  argument  maintain, 
and  what  our  method  of  search  ought  to  be.  Abso- 


262         THE   RELIGIOUS   ASPECT   OF   PHILOSOPHY. 

lute  and  Infinite,  Logos  and  not  Logos,  Mind-Stuff 
and  Spirit  —  what  are  they  all  for  critical  philoso- 
phy, but,  in  the  first  place,  mere  ideas,  conceptions 
of  reason,  to  be  mercilessly  analyzed  without  regard 
for  consequences  ? 

One  way  remains  whereby  this  realistic  monism 
can  still  hope  to  reach  a  satisfactory  statement  of  the 
world-problem.  Suppose  that,  once  for  all,  the  his- 
torical form  of  statement  is  abandoned,  while  the  no- 
tion of  the  Reason  as  a  power  is  retained.  This  may 
be  done  in  either  of  two  ways.  The  universal  reason 
may  be  conceived  as  manifesting  itself  in  time,  but 
not  in  a  series  of  events  that  are  united  as  the  parts 
of  a  single  process.  The  world-life  may  be  conceived 
not  as  a  single  history,  but  as  an  eternally  repeated 
product  of  the  One  reason,  a  process  ever  renewed 
as  soon  as  finished,  an  infinite  series  of  growing  and 
decaying  worlds  —  worlds  that  are  like  the  leaves 
of  the  forest,  that  spring  and  wither  through  an  eter- 
nity of  changing  seasons.  The  rationality  of  the 
world-process  is  thus  saved  for  our  thought  by  the 
hypothesis  that  reason  is  not  like  a  belated  traveler, 
wandering  through  the  night  of  time,  seeking  for 
a  self-realization  that  is  never  reached,  but,  rather, 
like  the  sun  that  each  day  begins  afresh  his  old 
task,  rejoicing  as  a  giant  in  the  fullness  of  his  at- 
tained power.  Whoever  regards  the  world  as  it  now 
is  as  plainly  a  sufficient  expression  of  infinite  ra- 
tional power,  is  at  liberty  to  accept  this  hypothesis ; 
but  he  must  prepare  to  answer  those  of  his  object- 
ors to  whom  reason  means  perfection,  and  to  whom 
the  world  of  sense  will  not  appear  as  just  at  present 
more  perfect  than  the  world  of  Candidas  experi- 


THE   WORLD   OF   DOUBT.  263 

ences.  For  every  one  but  the  blind  optimist  there 
is  difficulty  in  regarding  this  wind-swept  battle-field 
of  human  action  as  obviously  and  altogether  a  drama 
of  unhindered  infinite  reason,  to  be  repeated  with 
unwearying  tautology  through  an  unending  future. 
Thus,  then,  we  are  tossed  back  and  forth  between 
the  possibilities  suggested  by  our  hypothesis.  "  The 
world  is  the  manifestation  of  infinite  reason  ;  " 
good,  then,  but  how  ?  "  The  world  is  a  rational 
growth  from  lower  to  higher"  How,  then,  is  this 
possible  if  the  infinite  reason  rules  all  and  desires 
the  higher  ?  Was  it  not  always  at  the  goal  ?  So, 
then :  "  The  world  is  not  one  process  merely,  but 
an  eternal  repetition  of  the  drama  of  infinite  reason, 
which,  as  infinite,  is  thus  always  active  and  always 
at  the  goal.7'  But  this  hypothesis  is  seemingly  over- 
thrown by  the  appearance  of  the  least  imperfection 
or  irrationality  in  nature.  The  first  starving  fam- 
ily, or  singed  moth,  or  broken  troth,  or  wasted  ef- 
fort, or  wounded  bird,  is  an  indictment  of  the  uni- 
versal reason,  that,  always  at  the  goal,  has  wrought 
this  irrational  wrong.  The  other  possible  hypothe- 
sis leaves  us,  after  all,  in  the  same  quandary.  Time 
may  be  a  mere  "mirage."  For  the  eternal  One 
there  is,  then,  no  process ;  only  fact.  This  notion 
of  a  timeless  Being  is,  no  doubt,  very  well  worth 
study.  But,  then,  the  eternal  One  is  thus  always  at 
the  goal,  just  as  in  the  other  case.  The  One,  we 
should  think,  cannot  be  infinite  and  rational  and  yet 
productive  of  the  least  trace  of  wrong,  absurdity, 
error,  falsehood.  Again  our  Monism  fails.  For, 
after  all,  the  world  has  been  viewed  by  us  only  from 
without ;  and  so  remains  dark. 


264         THE   RELIGIOUS  ASPECT    OF   PHILOSOPHY. 

IV. 

Our  monism  fails,  namely,  to  establish  itself  on 
any  ground  of  experience.  Absolute  refutation  is 
indeed  not  yet  thus  attained,  for  the  defender  of 
the  hypothesis  of  an  infinite  reason  always  has  at 
his  disposal  the  suggestions  of  the  ancient  theodicy, 
modified  to  suit  his  needs.  He  can  say  :  "  The  par- 
tial evil  is,  somehow,  we  cannot  see  how,  universal 
good."  Or,  again,  "  Evil  results  from  the  free-will 
of  moral  agents,  who  have  to  suffer  for  their  own 
chosen  sins."  The  latter  answer,  a  very  plausible  one 
in  its  own  sphere,  is  for  the  general  problem  insig- 
nificant. That  there  is  free-will  we  do  not  dispute, 
and  that  free-will,  if  it  exists,  is  a  cause  of  much 
mischief  is  undoubted.  Yet  if  the  universe  is  so 
made  that  the  free-will  of  the  slave-driver,  or  of  the 
.murderer,  or  of  the  seducer,  or  of  the  conqueror, 
works  untold  ill  to  innocent  victims,  then  the  fault 
of  the  suffering  of  the  victims  rests  not  wholly  with 
the  evil-doer,  but  partly  with  the  order  of  the  world, 
which  has  given  him  so  much  power,  such  a  wide 
freedom  to  do  the  mischief  that  he  desires.  The 
world  in  which  such  things  happen  must  justify  its 
religiously  inspiring  nature  in  some  other  way. 

The  other  answer,  that  partial  evil  is  universal 
good,  we  have  to  regard  as  a  much  deeper  answer, 
shallow  as  have  been  the  uses  often  made  of  it  in  the 
past.  But  if  it  is  to  be  a  valid  answer,  it  must  take 
a  particular  form.  The  words  are  usually  spoken 
too  glibly.  Their  meaning,  if  they  are  to  have  any, 
we  must  very  carefully  consider,  ere  we  can  dare  to 


THE   WORLD   OF   DOUBT.  265 

accept  them.  Only  from  a  higher  point  of  view 
shall  we  in  fact  be  able  to  apply  them.  In  the 
world  of  the  Powers  they  find  no  resting-place. 

How  can  a  partial  evil  be  an  universal  good? 
Only  in  certain  cases.  The  notion  plainly  is  that 
the  evil  in  the  external  world  of  popular  thought 
is,  as  known  to  us,  only  a  part  of  the  whole,  and 
the  whole,  it  is  said,  may  be  in  character  opposed  to 
the  part.  This  must  indeed  be  the  case,  if  the  world 
as  a  whole  is  to  be  the  work  of  an  Infinite  Reason. 
For  if  so,  the  evil  must  be,  not  merely  a  bad  lesser 
part  that  is  overbalanced  by  the  goodness  of  the 
larger  half  of  the  world,  but  non-existent,  save  as  a 
separate  aspect  of  reality,  so  that  it  would  vanish 
if  we  knew  more  about  the  truth.  This  is  what  the 
saying  asserts  :  not  that  evil  is  overbalanced  by  good 
(for  that  would  leave  the  irrational  still  real),  but 
that  evil  is  only  a  deceitful  appearance,  whose  true 
nature,  if  seen  in  its  entirety,  would  turn  out  to  be 
good.  One  could  not  say  of  a  rotting  apple,  however 
small  the  rotten  spot  as  yet  is,  that  the  partial  rot- 
tenness is  the  universal  soundness  of  the  apple.  If 
I  have  but  one  slight  disorder  in  but  one  of  my 
organs,  still  you  cannot  say  that  my  partial  disorder 
must  be  universal  health.  The  old  optimists  did  not 
mean  anything  so  contradictory  as  that.  They  meant 
that  there  is  no  real  evil  at  all ;  that  what  seems  to 
me  to  be  evil,  say  toothaches,  and  broken  households, 
and  pestilences,  and  treasons,  and  wars,  all  that  to- 
gether is  but  a  grand  illusion  of  my  partial  view. 
As  one  looking  over  the  surface  of  a  statue  with  a 
microscope,  and  finding  nothing  but  a  stony  surface, 


266    THE  RELIGIOUS  ASPECT  OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

might  say,  how  ugly  !  but  on  seeing  the  whole  at  a 
glance  would  know  its  beauty;  even  so  one  seeing 
the  world  by  bits  fancies  it  evil,  but  would  know  it 
to  be  good  if  he  saw  it  as  a  whole.  And  the  seem- 
ing but  unreal  evil  of  the  parts  may  be  necessary  in 
order  that  the  real  whole  should  be  good.  Such  is 
the  position  of  our  optimists.  This  is  the  Platonic- 
Augustinian  doctrine  of  the  unreality  of  evil. 

The  logical  possibility  of  all  this  we  do  not  for  the 
first  either  dispute  or  affirm.  But  we  are  dealing 
with  a  world  of  difficulties,  and  we  can  only  point 
out  the  antecedent  difficulty  of  this  theory.  If  the 
world  of  experience  simply  lacked  here  and  there  in- 
terest, or  positive  signs  of  rational  perfection,  then 
one  might  well  compare  it  to  the  statue,  that  seen 
only  piecemeal,  and  through  a  microscope  applied 
to  its  surface,  would  wholly  lack  the  beauty  that  ap- 
pears when  all  is  viewed  at  once.  Then  one  might 
say,  with  great  plausibility,  that  if  perceptible  har- 
mony is  simply  lacking  to  our  partial  view,  the  great 
whole  may  still  be  a  grand  harmony.  But  the 
trouble  lies  in  the  seemingly  positive  character  of 
evil.  Not  simple  lack  of  harmony,  but  horrible  dis- 
cord, is  here.  How  the  tortures  of  the  wounded  on 
a  field  of  battle  can  anyhow  enter  into  a  whole  in 
which,  as  seen  by  an  absolute  judge,  there  is  actually 
no  trace  of  evil  at  all,  this  is  what  we  cannot  under- 
stand. It  seems  very  improbable.  Only  absolute 
proof  will  satisfy  us.  And  of  course,  as  has  been 
indicated,  by  some  of  our  examples  above,  it  is  not 
the  quantity  of  any  evil  (if  an  evil  be  a  quantity  at 
all),  but  the  quality  of  it,  that  makes  us  urge  it  in 


THE   WORLD   OF   DOUBT.  267 

opposition  to  the  claims  of  reason  to  be  the  ruler  of 
all  things.  Any  evil  will  do,  if  it  seems  to  be  a  real 
and  positive  evil.  For  then  it  seems  positively  at 
war  with  reason. 

Actually,  however,  theodicies  and  kindred  efforts, 
whether  monistic  or  not,  in  trying  to  vindicate  the 
rational  in  the  world  have  seldom  consistently  main- 
tained this  high  and  slippery  ground  of  the  theory 
of  Plato  and  of  St.  Augustine.  Far  from  declaring 
that  all  physical  evil  is  and  must  be  apparent,  the 
popular  theodicies  have  often  consented  to  accept 
the  reality  of  this  positive  evil,  and  to  minimize  its 
significance  by  certain  well-worn,  and,  for  the  pur- 
poses of  this  argument,  contemptible  devices.  They 
have  pointed  out  that  the  evil  in  the  world,  though 
a  reality  separate  from  the  good,  exists  as  a  means  to 
good.  Or,  again,  they  have  said  that  evil  is  neces- 
sary as  something  outside  of  the  good,  setting  it  off 
by  way  of  contrast.  Both  devices,  if  applied  to  a 
world  in  which  good  and  evil  are  conceived  as  sepa- 
rate entities,  are  unworthy  of  philosophic  thinkers. 

For  consider  the  first  device.  "  Evil  is  a  reality, 
not  an  illusion,  but  it  is  a  means  to  good.  There- 
fore in  the  world  as  a  whole,  good  triumphs.  There- 
fore reason,  which  desires  the  good,  is  the  One 
Ruler."  But  first,  to  mention  a  lesser  objection, 
the  basis  in  experience  for  this  view  is  surely  very 
narrow.  Much  evil  exists  whose  use  as  a  means  we 
cannot  even  faintly  conceive.  But  grant  this  point. 
Then  the  real  evil  is  a  means  to  a  separate  and  ex- 
ternal good  end.  But  if  the  end  was  good,  why  was 
it  not  got  without  the  evil  means  ?  Only  two  answers 


268         THE   RELIGIOUS   ASPECT   OF   PHILOSOPHY. 

are  possible  to  this,  in  case  the  evil  is  separate  from 
the  good.  Either  the  One  Reason  was  driven  to 
take  just  this  way,  and  could  take  no  less  expensive 
one ;  or  the  One  Reason,  not  being  bound  to  this 
road,  still  arbitrarily  chose  to  take  it  instead  of  a 
better.  But  either  answer  is  fatal.  Was  the  One 
Reason  unable  to  do  better  ?  Then  it  is  not  the  only 
power  at  work.  The  Monism  fails.  The  Reason 
was  bound.  But  he  who  binds  the  strong  man  is 
stronger  than  he.  If,  however,  the  One  chose  this 
way  rather  than  a  better,  then  the  One  chose  evil  for 
its  own  sake.  The  dilemma  is  inevitable. 

To  exemplify :  If  pain  is  an  evil,  and  if  the  evil 
of  the  pain  caused  you  by  a  burn,  or  cut,  or  bruise 
is  justified  by  saying  that  all-wise  nature  makes  your 
skin  sensitive  to  the  end  that  you  may  be  helped  in 
keeping  it  whole ;  then  the  obvious  answer  is,  that 
if  nature  is  all-wise  and  all-powerful  and  benevolent 
towards  you,  it  was  her  business  to  find  a  way  of 
keeping  your  skin  in  general  whole,  without  entail- 
ing upon  you  the  tortures  of  this  present  injury.  If 
a  machine  that  we  make  runs  poorly,  we  are  not  dis- 
posed to  blame  ourselves,  in  case  we  are  sure  that 
we  have  done  our  very  best  with  it.  But  the  ma- 
chines of  all-wise  nature  must  not  run  with  destruc- 
tive friction,  unless  all-wise  nature  intends  destruc- 
tive friction.  The  same  remark  applies  to  all  the 
eloquent  speeches  about  the  educative  value  of  our 
sufferings.  If  nature  could  make  us  perfect  without 
suffering,  and  if  suffering  is  not  itself  an  organic 
part  of  our  perfection,  but  only  an  external  means 
thereto,  then  it  was  nature's  rational  business  to  de- 


THE  WORLD   OF   DOUBT.  269 

velop  us  differently.  But  if  nature  could  not  perfect 
our  characters  save  through  this  imperfect  means, 
then  nature's  means  were  limited.  Nature  was  not 
all-powerful.  Reason  had  some  irrational  power  be- 
yond it  that  it  could  not  conquer.  Even  so  we  can- 
not yet  run  certain  engines  without  smoke.  When 
we  are  more  civilized,  we  shall  abolish  smoke,  be- 
cause we  shall  get  more  power  over  the  processes  of 
combustion.  At  present,  by  this  hypothesis,  nature 
can  only  make  characters  perfect  through  suffering, 
this  smoke  of  the  engine  of  life.  So  much  the  worse 
for  nature,  unless  indeed,  in  some  unknown  way, 
suffering  is  really  no  true  evil  at  all,  but  itself  a 
perfection  that,  if  seen  from  above,  would  become 
plainly  universal  good.  And  does  that  as  yet  look 
probable  ? 

Even  worse  is  the  other  device  often  suggested 
for  explaining  evil.  "  Evil  is  a  reality,  but  it  is  use- 
ful as  a  foil  to  good.  The  two  separate  facts,  good 
and  evil,  set  each  other  off.  By  its  contrast,  evil 
increases  the  importance  of  good."  When  this  re- 
mark is  made  about  us  personally  with  our  limita- 
tions of  body  and  circumstance,  with  our  relativity 
of  feeling  and  of  attention,  the  remark  has  some 
psychological  interest.  Made  to  justify  the  supposed 
universal  reason,  the  remark  is  childish.  Always, 
indeed,  it  is  possible  that  evil  as  a  separate  entity 
may  be  made  out  to  be  an  illusion ;  and  that  good 
and  evil  have  some  higher  unity  that  involves  the 
perfection  of  the  world.  But  if  evil  is  real,  and  sep- 
arate from  goodness,  then  the  talk  about  explaining 
it  as  a  useful  contrast  is  of  no  worth  in  the  present 


270         THE   RELIGIOUS   ASPECT   OF   PHILOSOPHY. 

argument.  For  we  ask :  Could  not  the  One  create 
a  perfect  good  save  by  making  good  more  attractive 
as  set  off  against  the  foil  evil  ?  Shall  we  say  that 
Reason  could  do  better  than  to  depend  upon  this 
contrast?  Then  why  the  evil?  If,  however,  the 
One  Reason  could  not  do  better,  but  had  to  use  the 
contrast,  then  the  One  was  less  powerful  in  its  de- 
vices than  is  the  maker  of  a  concert  -  programme, 
who  has  no  need  to  introduce  into  his  concert  any 
saw-filing  or  tin-trumpeting  or  pot-scraping  to  set  off 
the  beauty  of  his  songs  and  symphonies.  But  as  a 
fact  of  experience,  is  most  evil  seemingly  even  thus 
useful  ?  Are  the  sick  needed  to  make  the  healthy 
joyous  ?  Was  Judas  necessary  in  order  that  Jesus 
should  show  himself  wholly  good  ?  Tradition,  in 
this  latter  case,  says  yes,  and  adds  the  mystical 
speech  about  the  need  that  the  offense  should  come. 
But  what  enlightened  man  nowadays  will  have  it 
that,  supposing  good  and  evil  to  be  separate  facts, 
there  can  be  logically  possible  nothing  thoroughly 
good,  in  case  some  of  this  evil  were  removed?  Could 
not  Jesus  have  been  what  he  was  without  Judas  ? 
One  doubts  here  the  fact  of  the  necessity  of  the  evil, 
even  in  our  own  little  lives;  and  one  is  indignant 
at  the  trifling  that  supposes  so  weak  a  device  as 
mere  external  contrast  to  be  the  sole  device  at  the 
disposal  of  the  One  Reason.  Yet  this  weak  hypoth- 
esis of  good  and  evil  as  externally  contrasting  sepa- 
rate entities  is,  after  all,  provokingly  near  in  form 
to  what  we  shall  hold  to  be  the  true  solution  of  the 
great  problem.  But  that  solution  is  still  far  away 
from  us  and  from  this  world  of  sense. 


THE  WORLD   OF  DOUBT.  271 

Thus  far,  then,  monism  seems,  if  not  an  impos- 
sible, still  a  decidedly  doubtful,  view  of  the  world. 
Its  value  as  furnishing  religious  support  seems  small. 
We  cannot  yet  by  experience  prove  that  the  rational 
power  is  supreme  in  the  world  ;  and  we  fail  to  make 
clear  to  ourselves  a  priori  how  it  should  be  supreme. 
So  far  we  remain  agnostics.  Our  only  escape  would 
seem  to  be  through  the  still  doubtful  doctrine  of  the 
unreality  of  EviL  And  that  way  seems  very  dark. 


V. 

Dualistic  Theism  here  confronts  us,  the  doctrine 
in  which  the  wise  of  so  many  ages  have  found  so 
much  support,  the  doctrine  of  a  Father,  separate 
from  the  world  of  created  finite  beings,  who  directs 
all  things,  pities  and  loves  his  children,  and  judges 
with  supreme  truthfulness  all  human  acts.  The  re- 
ligious value  of  this  doctrine,  on  one  side  at  least, 
nobody  can  possibly  question.  The  Father,  as  Jesus 
conceives  him,  has  in  a  very  high  sense  the  charac- 
ter that  we  desire  to  find  in  reality.  To  be  sure, 
there  is  the  other  side.  This  God  of  the  dualistic 
view  is  seemingly  limited.  As  a  Father  pitieth  his 
children,  so  this  God  pitieth.  But  this  pity  seems  to 
be  the  love  of  one  who  yet  cannot  or  will  not  save 
us  from  all  our  evil.  And  if  the  evil  is  a  reality, 
and  is  meant  to  work  for  our  good,  still  there  is  the 
unanswerable  objection  that  if  the  Father  is  not 
bound  by  an  irrational  power  beyond  him,  he  need 
not  have  put  us  into  so  evil  a  state,  but  might  have 
wrought  us  our  good  in  some  less  painful  and  dan- 


272         THE  RELIGIOUS   ASPECT    OF   PHILOSOPHY. 

gerous  way.  In  fact,  the  only  plausible  explanation 
of  real  evil,  in  case  there  is  separate  evil  in  the 
world,  an  explanation  which  shall  yet  be  consistent 
with  the  Father's  power  and  goodness,  is  the  pre- 
viously mentioned  explanation,  that,  if  beings  were 
created,  as  we  are,  free,  they  must  needs  be  also 
free  to  choose  the  evil.  But  this  explanation  only 
serves  to  explain  the  evil  that  has  directly  resulted 
from  free  choice,  that  directly  affects  those  who 
made  the  choice,  and  that  was  distinctly  foreseen 
by  them  when  they  chose  it.  No  other  evil  is  justi- 
fiable as  a  result  of  free-will ;  all  other  evil  seems 
absolutely  mysterious,  when  viewed  with  reference 
to  God's  goodness ;  and  very  little  of  the  evil  that 
we  experience  in  this  world  is  the  direct  result  of 
the  deliberate  choice  of  those  who  suffer  it.  It  is 
hardly  necessary  to  illustrate  these  facts,  which,  like 
the  most  of  the  present  chapter,  belong  to  the  best- 
known  and  most  frequently  misrepresented  of  the 
matters  of  human  controversy.  The  poor  of  great 
cities,  the  men  who  inherit  loathsome  diseases,  the 
naturally  weak  of  will,  the  insane,  the  sufferers  in 
accidents,  the  soldiers  led  to  slaughter,  the  slaves, 
the  down-trodden  peasants  and  laborers  of  the  world : 
all  these,  whose  ills  are  simply  inconceivable  in 
might,  have  no  more  brought  all  this  on  themselves 
of  their  own  free-will,  than  have  the  healthy  and 
happy,  the  heirs  of  wealth,  the  ever-joyous,  earned 
for  themselves  the  good  fortune  to  which  they  are 
born.  A  man  can  do  much  with  and  for  himself ; 
but  the  best  part  of  him,  and  commonly  of  his  envi- 
ronment, is  determined  by  birth.  And  for  most  of 


THE   WORLD   OF   DOUBT.  273 

that  "  with  which  the  face  of  man  is  blackened,"  the 
power  is  thus  responsible  which  no  free-will  of  man 
has  made.  This  evil  must  either  be  an  organic  ele- 
ment in  a  real  higher  perfect  unity  of  the  world,  or 
else  free-will  is  no  explanation  or  justification  for  its 
existence. 

But  really,  the  intelligent  reader  needs,  when  we 
get  to  this  most  familiar  part  of  our  discussion,  no 
very  lengthy  repetition  of  the  old  story.  His  mind 
is  doubtless  made  up  already,  and  he  will  desire  only 
a  brief  reminder  of  the  chief  points  that  have  to  do 
with  this  question  and  with  those  questions  most 
nearly  related  thereto. 

If,  then,  the  doctrine  of  God's  Fatherhood  is  to 
be  religiously  useful  to  us,  we  must  make  up  our 
minds  whether  the  Father  that  we  seek  is  to  be  the 
omnipotent  Ruler  of  things,  or  only  a  limited  Power, 
or  again,  something  else  that  is  not  power.  In  the 
last  mentioned  case,  he  belongs  to  that  aspect  of  the 
world  which  we  just  now  purposely  exclude  from 
consideration.  If  the  Father  is  a  Power,  then  we 
all  know  the  old  but  eternally  fresh  dilemma  about 
his  nature.  He  is  either  infinite  or  limited.  If  he 
is  infinite,  we  find  arising  all  the  difficulties  just  sug- 
gested in  our  consideration  of  the  hypothesis  of  an 
Infinite  Reason,  and  one  other  difficulty,  worse,  if 
anything,  than  they  all.  That  difficulty  we  shall 
mention  soon  again.  But  if,  on  the  other  hand,  the 
Father  is  to  be  conceived  as  a  limited  power,  if  we 
are  to  accept  some  sort  of  modern  Manicheanism, 
then  no  a  priori  disproof  of  the  possibility  of  the 
hypothesis  can  be  offered ;  since,  a  priori,  any  finite 

18 


274         THE    RELIGIOUS   ASPECT   OF   PHILOSOPHY. 

power  you  please  is  a  possibility  ;  but  our  great 
trouble  will  then  lie  in  the  fact  that  only  experience 
can  establish  such  an  hypothesis,  which  by  its  very 
nature  needs  a  posteriori  proof.  And  experience, 
as  summed  up  in  science,  has  in  fact  simply  no  need 
of  that  hypothesis.  Hence  we  shall  be  left  alto- 
gether in  doubt,  at  least  while  we  study  the  World 
as  Power. 

Such  is  the  argument  in  its  most  general  state- 
ment. Now  as  to  the  points  in  greater  detail.  The 
great  difficulty  mentioned  above  as  lying  in  the  way 
of  the  hypothesis  of  an  infinite  creative  power  is  a 
difficulty  in  the  conception  of  creation  itself.  Crea- 
tion, for  the  popular  conception,  certainly  involves 
producing  a  thing  of  some  kind  by  a  creative  act, 
the  thing  produced  existing  forthwith  outside  of  the 
creator.  To  give  up  this  separation  of  creator  and 
product  is  to  become  pantheistic.  And  with  monism 
we  are  not  here  concerned.  But  now  the  idea  of 
an  infinite  creative  Power  outside  of  his  products 
involves  more  than  one  difficulty.  We  shall  not 
dwell  on  the  old  difficulty  that  this  infinite  Power 
would  become  finite  as  soon  as  there  was  in  existence 
something  outside  of  it.  We  shall  proceed  at  once 
to  a  more  fruitful  and  serious  difficulty,  which  we 
find  in  the  fact  that  the  concept  of  producing  an  ex- 
ternal thing  involves,  of  necessity,  a  relation  to  a 
Law,  above  both  producer  and  product,  which  de- 
termines the  conditions  under  which  there  can  be 
a  product  at  all.  The  creative  power  must  then 
work  under  conditions,  however  magical  and  myste- 
rious its  acts  may  be.  And  working  under  condi- 


THE  WORLD   OF  DOUBT.  275 

tions,  it  must  be  finite.  No  device  for  minimizing 
the  meaning  of  this  separation  of  creative  power  and 
created  thing  will  really  escape  the  difficulty  result- 
ing. And  this  difficulty  will  appear  in  all  cases 
of  supposed  creation.  It  may  be  summed  up  once 
more  in  the  statement  that  any  creative  power  in  act, 
just  as  much  needs  explanation  in  some  higher  law 
and  power  as  does  the  thing  created  itself,  so  that 
whatever  creates  a  product  external  to  itself  becomes 
thereby  as  truly  dependent  a  power  as  we  ourselves 
are.  Let  us  exemplify. 

"  Let  there  be  light"  shall  represent  a  creative 
act.  If  the  light  that  results  is  simply  a  fact  in  God, 
then  our  difficulty  is  avoided,  but  the  very  concep- 
tion of  a  power  creating  anything  external  to  itself 
is  abandoned.  Then  one  becomes  frankly  pantheis- 
tic, and  identifies  all  things  with  the  creative  power. 
But  if  the  light  is  not  the  creative  act,  but  sepa- 
rate from  it,  then  you  have  an  insurmountable  diffi- 
culty in  the  conception.  For  the  power  that  makes 
the  fiat  is  not  itself  the  created  thing,  but,  as  it  were, 
this  power  finds  the  product  as  a  result  of  t\&fiat. 
God  saying,  Fiat  lux,  finds  that  this  act,  this  word, 
or  whatever  process  it  symbolizes  as  actually  happen- 
ing in  the  divine  mind,  is  followed  by  the  external 
appearance  of  something,  namely,  light.  Now  as 
creator  of  light,  God  is  not  yet  conceived  as  the 
creator  of  those  conditions  under  which  just  this 
fiat  could  be  followed  by  just  these  consequences. 
But  the  external  success  of  the  j#a£  presupposes  ex- 
ternal conditions  under  which  the  fiat  can  succeed. 
Just  as  when  I  say,  "  let  there  be  light,"  and  pro- 


276         THE   RELIGIOUS   ASPECT   OF   PHILOSOPHY. 

duce  it  by  my  own  fiat  plus  the  necessary  physical 
acts,  even  so  the  conceived  Deity  in  the  conceived 
case,  though  needing  no  other  means  save  his  fiat, 
has  yet  needed  that,  and  has  found  his  fiat  a  suffi- 
cient cause  of  this  external  change  from  darkness  to 
light.  But  just  as  my  success  in  making  light  needs 
explanation  by  the  laws  of  an  external  world,  so 
God's  success  in  making  it  also  needs  explanation,  in 
the  case  thus  conceived,  although  his  means  are  sup- 
posed to  have  been  less  complex  than  mine  have  to 
be.  He  too  is  put  by  this  conception  in  a  world  of 
law  external  to  himself,  the  laws  of  this  world  being 
such  as  require  that,  in  order  to  produce  light  as  an 
external  fact  he  shall  perform  a  certain  act,  the  fiat. 
These  laws  secure  him  success,  in  the  supposed  case, 
under  just  these  conditions.  The  fiat  may  itself  be 
whatever  process  you  will. 

But  how  then  did  these  conditions  arise  ?  How 
is  it  that  God  is  able  to  make  light  as  an  existence 
external  to  himself?  The  external  conditions  on 
which  his  present  success  depends  may  indeed  have 
been  again  created  by  himself.  Even  so  a  man  could 
now  possibly  make  some  ingenious  mechanism,  com- 
pounded of  telephones  and  what  else  you  will,  so  as 
to  be  able  to  light  a  whole  building  by  the  impulse 
produced  by  some  very  simple  act,  e.  g.,  by  speaking 
the  words,  "  Let  there  be  light,"  against  some  pre- 
pared membrane.  But  then  we  are  involved  in  just 
the  same  difficulties.  As  the  man's  mechanical  skill 
would  imply  a  conformity  to  laws  of  nature  preced- 
ing his  present  power  to  make  light  by  the  word  of 
his  mouth,  even  so,  if  God's  creative  power  has  pre- 


THE   WORLD  OF   DOUBT.  277 

viously  created  the  conditions  of  the  success  of  this 
his  present  fiat,  the  same  questions  would  arise  about 
those  conditions,  and  so  on  ad  infinitum.  Always 
even  the  infinite  series  of  acts  would  imply,  at  every 
step  of  the  regress,  God  working  upon  a  nature  ex- 
ternal to  himself,  and  so  God  as  a  finite  power,  sub- 
ject to  the  laws  that  let  him  work. 

But  then  may  we  not  hereupon  accept  the  doctrine 
of  God's  infinity,  and  say  that  this  infinite  power  is 
identical  with  its  products  ?  Shall  we  not  be  panthe- 
ists of  the  old-fashioned  sort,  and  yet  keep  the  doc- 
trine of  God's  Fatherhood?  The  attempt  is  hope- 
less. And  the  difficulties  in  the  way  of  the  religious 
use  of  the  pantheistic  hypotheses  have  already  been 
considered.  Furthermore,  many  theistic  thinkers 
have  felt  the  force  of  an  old  set  of  arguments  that, 
in  this  country  and  recently,  Professor  Bowne,  in  his 
"  Metaphysics,"  has  more  than  once  set  forth  at 
length,  namely,  the  thought  that,  if  God  can  be  as 
Creator  identical  with  his  other  creations,  he  cannot 
as  a  Power  well  be  identical  with  us,  who  feel  our- 
selves to  be  also  creative  powers,  and  not  mere  forms 
or  acts  in  any  other  power.  But  if  we  are  separate 
from  God,  then  in  this  class  of  cases  his  creation  of 
us  involves  all  the  difficulties  before  pointed  out. 
When  he  made  us,  his  fiat  was  successful  beyond 
himself.  The  success  needs  a  preexistent  law,  or,  if 
you  will,  a  preexistent  power  outside  of  him,  to  ex- 
plain it ;  just  exactly  as  my  power  to  move  my  hand 
or  to  wink  my  eye  implies  a  whole  universe  of  being 
outside  of  me  in  order  to  give  my  will  just  this  posi- 
tion of  authority.  Merely  assume  in  your  thought 


278         THE   RELIGIOUS   ASPECT   OF   PHILOSOPHY. 

these  conceptions,  namely,  a  power  that  acts  and  an 
external  product  resulting  from  its  acts ;  and  at  once 
you  need  a  higher  power  and  a  higher  law,  external 
to  the  first  power,  to  explain  how  the  first  power, 
acting  in  just  this  way,  could  achieve  just  this  exter- 
nal result.  Hence  either  God  creates  nothing  exter- 
nal to  himself,  or  else,  in  creating,  he  works  under 
the  laws  that  presuppose  a  power  higher  than  him- 
self, and  external  to  himself.  In  the  briefest  form  : 
Acts  that  produce  external  changes  imply  adjust- 
ment of  means  to  ends.  The  creation  of  external 
things  is  such  an  act.  Unless  an  actor  is  identical 
with  the  product  itself,  he  must  therefore  be  subject 
to  the  external  conditions  of  adjustment,  i.  e.,  he 
must  be  finite. 

Certain  thinkers  are  accustomed  to  suppose  that 
they  honor  God  by  having  obscure  and  self-contra- 
dictory ideas  about  him.  Hence  they  avoid  all  of 
the  foregoing  difficulties  by  calling  the  creative  act 
a  mystery.  Now  there  are  mysteries  and  mysteries. 
We  do  not  know  how  trees  grow,  nor  why  the  planets 
obey  the  law  of  gravitation.  But  we  are  sure  that 
they  do.  On  the  other  hand,  we  do  not  know  how 
squares  can  be  round ;  but  we  happen  in  this  case 
to  perceive  that  squares  cannot  be  round.  Now  if 
somebody  tells  me  that  God  is  a  round  square,  and 
appeals  to  me  to  consider  reverently  whether  piety 
allows  me  to  assert,  in  view  of  the  mystery  of  God's 
being,  that  God  is  not  a  round  square,  my  answer  is 
very  plain.  I  say  at  once  that  it  must  be  as  irrever- 
ent to  call  God  absurd  and  self -contradictory  in  his 
nature  as  to  call  him  anything  else  discreditable ; 


THE   WORLD   OF   DOUBT.  279 

and  that  I,  for  my  part,  hesitate  not  to  declare  very 
frankly  that  though  I  know  very  little  about  God,  I 
am  sure  that  he  is  no  round  square.  Now  even  so, 
an  absurd  and  self-contradictory  account  of  the  act 
of  creation  must  not  be  allowed  to  escape  us  by 
pleading  that  creation  is  a  mystery,  and  that  nobody 
can  see  how  God  makes  things.  For,  mysterious  as 
creation  may  be,  we  can  be  sure  that  if  creation  is  of 
such  a  nature  as  to  involve  an  external  power  and  an 
external  law,  outside  of  God's  creative  power  itself, 
then  God  is  himself  not  infinite.  And  we  can  be 
equally  sure  that  unless  God  as  creator  is  identical 
with  his  products,  the  idea  of  a  creative  act  does  in- 
volve just  such  a  power  preceding  the  act  and  out- 
side of  God  himself.  The  device  then  by  which  so 
many  thinkers  seek  to  escape  from  this  well-known 
and  ancient  net  of  dialectics,  seems  for  us  necessarily 
unsuccessful.  There  are  mysteries  that  we  have  rev- 
erently to  accept,  and  before  long  we  ourselves  shall 
find  such,  and  we  shall  be  glad  to  bow  before  them. 
But  if  creation  is  indeed  such  a  mystery,  at  all  events 
a  self-contradiction  about  creation  is  not  such  a  mys- 
tery. 

VI. 

We  have  dwelt  at  length  on  one  of  the  alterna- 
tives of  Theism.  Disheartened,  and  without  any  en- 
thusiasm, we  turn  to  the  other.  Must  we  after  all 
remain  content  in  our  religion  without  any  assur- 
ance of  the  supremacy  of  the  good  ?  Must  we  be  con- 
tent with  this  halting  half  Theism  of  the  empirical 
Design- Argument?  If  we  must  be,  we  must  be.  But 


280    THE  RELIGIOUS  ASPECT  OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

what  if  that  too  should  fail  us  ?  Let  us  at  least  try 
it.  This  unsatisfactory  view  says  :  "  What  powers 
there  may  be  in  the  world  we  can  never  wholly  know. 
But  we  think  that  there  is  evidence  that  they  that 
be  for  the  moral  law  are  more  than  they  that  be 
against  it.  And  this  evidence  is  given  us  by  the  em- 
pirically discerned  marks  of  benevolent  design  about 
us  in  the  world."  This  view,  whatever  its  relig- 
ious worth,  is  at  all  events  capable  only  of  empirical 
proof,  and  pretends  only  to  such  a  rank.  And  it  is 
in  discussing  this  hypothesis,  in  the  dim  light  of  the 
weary  centuries  of  dispute  about  it,  that  one  comes 
at  last  fully  to  feel  the  bitterness  of  the  doubt  that, 
like  a  tormenting  disease,  assails  and  eternally  must 
assail  one  who  tries  to  be  content  with  this  dreary  vis- 
ible world  in  which  we  have  been  so  far  vainly  seek- 
ing for  comfort.  Wrangle  upon  wrangle,  ceaseless 
balancing  of  probabilities  this  way  and  that,  opinions 
and  ridicule  and  abuse  forever,  and  no  result :  such 
is  this  empirical  teleology  that  seeks  a  world-manu- 
facturer, and  cannot  discover  him.  Let  us  take  up 
the  miserable  business  just  where  we  happen  to 
find  it. 

There  is  no  doubt  about  this,  that  the  doctrine  of 
evolution  has  rendered  the  popular  empirical  proof 
of  a  special  designing  power  much  harder  than  we 
used  to  suppose.  And  when  we  pass  to  this  aspect 
of  our  question,  we  must  confess  at  once  that  we  have 
nothing  to  say  which  can  be  new  to  any  reader  of 
modern  discussion.  This  empirical  teleology  will  al- 
ways remain  a  doubtful  subject  for  human  inquiry. 
Any  dogmatic  disproof  of  intelligent  finite  powers 


THE   WORLD   OF  DOUBT.  281 

or  daemons  above  us  must  be  regarded  as  impossi- 
ble. The  only  question  to  be  here  solved  is  the 
possibility  of  purely  inductive  proof  of  the  existence 
of  such  higher  intelligent  agencies.  And  here,  as 
we  hold,  just  the  ancient  difficulties  as  to  the  proof 
of  any  empirical  teleological  theory  survive,  and  are, 
in  spite  of  all  that  recent  writers  have  done,  rather 
increased  by  our  knowledge  of  the  facts  of  evolution. 
Especially  does  evolution  make  the  empirical  hypoth- 
esis of  the  existence  of  any  finite  and  good  daemonic 
power,  intelligently  and  morally  working  in  the 
world,  continually  more  and  more  obscure.  For 
first,  as  to  the  intelligence  of  the  higher  powers,  what 
the  theory  of  evolution  has  done  for  us  in  this  re- 
spect is  simply  to  make  us  feel  that  we  know  not, 
and  cannot  yet  even  guess,  how  much  what  we  em- 
pirically call  bare  mechanism  can  do  to  simulate  the 
effects  of  what,  in  an  equally  empirical  and  blind 
way,  men  call  intelligence.  Therefore  no  empirical 
design-argument  has  longer  anywhere  nearly  the 
same  amount  of  persuasive  power  that  it  once  seemed 
to  have.  The  matter  stands  thus :  An  empirical  de- 
sign-argument might  very  plausibly  reason  that,  if  I 
find  a  child's  blocks  arranged  to  make  a  house  or  to 
spell  words,  I  can  assume  that  some  designing  human 
hand  has  so  placed  them.  But  the  inductive  force 
of  the  argument  rests  on  my  previous  knowledge 
that  nothing  is  so  apt  to  put  blocks  in  that  order, 
in  this  present  visible  world,  as  just  a  designing 
human  hand.  But  if  I  discovered  certain  physical 
conditions  that  did  very  frequently  work,  and  that 
did  often  so  arrange  blocks,  then  I  should  no  longer 


282         THE   RELIGIOUS   ASPECT    OF   PHILOSOPHY. 

consider  the  given  arrangement  good  proof  of  human 
design.  Even  so,  until  I  see  that  natural  selection 
can  simulate  the  designing  power  of  human  beings, 
I  may  be  disposed  to  regard  a  given  case  of  appar- 
ent design  in  nature  as  a  fair  inductive  proof  of 
some  great  carpenter  or  watch-maker  working  there. 
But  the  induction,  never  overwhelming,  becomes  very 
weak  when  I  learn  that  there  are  so-called  physical 
conditions  such  as  we  or  chance  can  produce,  which, 
however,  do  nevertheless  result  in  things  that  my  eye 
would  have  called  full  of  design.  For  then  I  am  led 
to  feel  as  if  I  could  pass  no  judgment  at  all  upon 
concrete  cases.  Yet  only  by  concrete  cases  can  an 
empirical  hypothesis  be  proved.  Therefore  unless  a 
pebble  proves  design  an  eye  does  not  prove  design. 
But  design,  we  hear,  is  not  incompatible  with  evo- 
lution. Of  course  not.  And  if  there  is  a  designer, 
who  works  through  evolution,  then  indeed  he  shows 
wonderful  foresight  and  mastery.  But  the  question 
is,  not  what  is  compatible  with  evolution,  but  what 
can  be  proven  from  bare  experience.  And  what  the 
modern  man  has  very  justly  come  to  see  is  that  mere 
experience  must  leave  him  in  utter  doubt  about 
what  powers,  intelligent  or  not  intelligent,  are  the 
sources  of  all  our  experience.  We  can  find  laws ; 
but  they  take  us  only  a  short  way.  And  the  more 
we  know  about  nature,  the  less  inclined  we  feel  to 
dogmatize  on  the  basis  of  mere  experience  about 
what  powers  are  behind  the  scenes.  They  may  be 
intelligent,  and  they  may  be  what  we  call  in  this 
world  of  sense  mechanical.  But  as  finite  powers, 
given  in  experience,  we  men  know  them  solely  by 


THE  WORLD   OF  DOUBT.  283 

their  effects.  And  their  effects  are  very  remote 
hints  of  their  real  nature.  It  is  really  painful  to 
read  the  elaborate  wastes  of  effort  made  in  our  day 
to  prove  that  some  theological  dogma  about  some 
power  beyond  experience  is  not  refuted  by  expe- 
rience. As  if  such  proof  made  anybody's  creed 
either  more  or  less  doubtful.  A  really  well-founded 
Theism  would  not  be,  in  this  tedious  way,  eternally 
on  the  defensive. 

But  there  is  the  other  aspect  of  the  matter.  An 
intelligent  power,  were  it  admitted,  would  not  need  to 
be  moral.  If  there  is  design,  is  the  designer  demon- 
strably  good  ?  Let  us  pass  over  to  that  question. 

VII. 

If  evolution  has  done  anything  for  us,  it  has 
tended  to  increase  our  sense  of  the  mystery  of  the 
world  of  experience,  and  therefore  the  philosoph- 
ically minded  religious  student  is  in  truth,  for  yet 
this  other  reason,  weary  of  all  this  empirical  Theism, 
namely,  because  he  despairs  of  finding  out,  by  such 
an  empirical  process,  anything  about  the  actual  pur- 
poses of  any  designer,  even  if  there  be  a  designer. 
To  study  English  literature  in  the  rubbish  heaps  of 
a  book-binder's  work-shop,  would  seem  to  a  wise  man 
a  much  more  hopeful  undertaking  than  to  seek  any 
one  notion  of  the  real  plan  on  which  this  world  is 
made  from  a  merely  empirical  study  of  our  little 
fragment  of  nature.  Science  is  right  in  abandoning 
such  undertakings  wholly  and  for  all  its  now  prob- 
able future  work.  Religion  must  find  the  religious 


284         THE   RELIGIOUS   ASPECT    OF   PHILOSOPHY. 

aspect  of  reality  in  a  totally  different  direction.  The 
higher  the  realities  that  we  study,  the  harder  the 
task.  The  heavens  declare  very  many  things  not 
wholly  clear  to  us  ;  but  the  earth  and  man  declare, 
as  natural  facts,  very  many  more  and  more  confusing 
things.  Only  a  poetical  abstraction  can  show  us  any 
one  plan  of  religious  value  in  the  world  of  sense, 
any  one  declaration  of  anybody's  glory  therein.  An 
equally  strong  opposing  interest  would  find  just  as 
good  evidence  for  what  it  sought  if  it  should  hold 
another  view  of  what  is  designed.  Nature  is,  so  re- 
garded, a  confused  hum  of  voices.  "  Nature,"  says 
one  voice,  "  is  meant  to  provide  bountifully  for  the 
wants  of  sentient  life."  "  Therefore,"  says  another 
voice,  "  all  the  weak,  the  sick,  the  old,  must  starve, 
and  all  the  carnivorous  destroy  their  neighbors." 
"  Nature  aims  at  the  evolution  of  the  highest  type  of 
life,"  says  the  first  voice.  "  Therefore,"  it  is  replied, 
"  she  bountifully  provides  swarms  of  parasites  of  all 
sorts  to  feed  on  higher  life."  "  Nature  desires  or- 
der and  unity,"  says  the  voice  from  the  heavens. 
"  Therefore  she  makes  meteors  and  comets,"  replies 
the  echoing  voice.  —  And  if  now  the  Fiend  appears, 
and  suggests,  as  the  only  satisfactory  design-hypoth- 
esis, something  of  this  sort,  how  could  experience 
answer  him  ?  —  "  Nature,"  he  says,  "  is  designed  by 
a  being  who  delights  in  manifold  activity  of  all  sorts, 
in  variety  of  organization  throughout  the  world,  in 
the  fine  contrasts  of  the  numberless  forms  of  sentient 
life,  and  in  whatever  means  vigor.  He  likes  to  see 
many  living  creatures,  and  he  likes  to  see  them  fight. 
He  likes  the  sight  of  suffering,  as  well  as  of  joy ; 


THE   WORLD   OF   DOUBT.  285 

because  both  mean  variety  of  action.  He  delights  in 
the  triumphs  of  the  victors,  in  the  groans  of  the  con- 
quered, in  the  sportiveness  of  young  animals,  in  the 
writhing  of  a  poor  beast  that  dies  in  torture,  in  the 
insidious  struggle  for  existence  that  the  Entozoa 
carry  on,  in  the  hopeless  sighs  that  men  send  up  to 
him  in  their  woe,  and  in  the  ideal  raptures  and 
agonies  of  saints,  artists,  and  lovers.  All  these  things 
he  likes,  because  they  are  just  so  many  forms  of  ex- 
istence. He  wants  plenty  of  life  and  vigor  to  con- 
template, as  a  boy  wants  stiff  soap-suds  to  make 
pretty  bubbles  for  his  pleasure  as  he  lies  idle.  This 
being  is  doubtless  finite  (like  his  brother,  the  Sete- 
bos  of  the  inimitable  monologue  that  Browning  has 
put  into  Caliban's  mouth).  But  just  now  he  reigns 
hereabouts,  even  as  Caliban's  Setebos  reigned  in  the 
island.  And  his  designs  are  so  obviously  shown  in 
nature,  that  anybody  ought  to  believe  in  him  who 
simply  looks  at  the  facts  of  experience." 

Of  this  horrible  doctrine  we  apprehend  that  ex- 
perience as  such  offers  no  disproof.  For  all  that 
science  can  say,  we  might  be  in  the  hands  of  just 
such  a  demon.  Hence  it  behooves  religious  students 
to  cease  looking  for  the  living  God  among  the  dead 
facts  of  physical  science,  and  to  betake  themselves 
to  their  own  proper  field.  Science  simply  leaves  all 
such  hypotheses  utterly  doubtful.  Our  little  corner 
of  the  world  may  have  become  what  it  is  in  any  one 
of  numberless  physically  definable  ways.  And,  if 
designed,  its  immediate  purpose  may  be  any  one  of 
numberless  purposes.  It  is  not  probable  that  expe- 
rience can  tell  us  much  about  that  matter.  Science 


286         THE   RELIGIOUS   ASPECT    OF   PHILOSOPHY. 

is  very  right  in  appealing  to  experience  with  wholly 
different  aims,  namely,  for  the  sake  of  understanding 
the  laws  of  the  sequence  of  phenomena,  to  the  'end 
that  we  may  be  able  to  know  what  the  world-plan, 
however  it  may  be  formed,  does  actually  render  us 
capable  of  accomplishing  just  now  and  here  in  our 
concrete  dealings  with  things.  And  if  science,  in 
doing  all  this,  has  to  make  certain  postulates,  and  to 
accept  them  on  faith,  then  such  faith,  though  it  needs 
indeed  a  deeper  foundation,  is  at  least  not  identical 
with  the  presumption  that,  undertaking  not  simply 
to  postulate,  but  to  prove  beyond  doubt,  pretends  to 
discover  with  certainty,  from  bare  experience,  that 
the  world -maker's  plans  do  agree  with  our  plans. 
After  all,  such  empirical  Theism  is  assuming  its 
safest  and  most  characteristic  form  when  it  appears 
no  longer  as  a  genuine  investigator,  but  poses  as  the 
defendant's  attorney,  takes  prudent  refuge  behind  the 
rules  of  debate,  and  demands  that  other  people  shall 
assume  the  burden  of  proof,  and  either  show  it  to  be 
certainly  false,  or  else  accept  it  for  the  sake  of  pro- 
priety. 

VIII. 

We  turned  to  the  supposed  external  World  of 
Powers,  and  we  have  found  it  either  dumb,  or  else 
given  to  dark  and  doubtful  speeches.  The  Powers 
may  indeed  be  somehow  of  the  highest  worth.  But 
to  us,  even  if  we  accept  unquestioningly  the  supposed 
external  world,  the  worth  of  it  all  seems  doubtful, 
and  more  so  the  longer  we  study  the  matter.  The 
partial  evil  may  be  universal  good ;  but  we  could  not 


THE   WORLD   OF  DOUBT.  287 

in  this  external  world  see  how,  nor  could  we  find 
proof  of  the  fact.  What  a  Power  causes,  that  the 
power  seems  responsible  for.  And  so  the  Powers 
that  cause  the  inestimable  might  of  evil  in  the  world 
seem  of  very  doubtful  religious  worth. 

We  have  already  suggested  in  outline  why  this 
doubtful  result  was  to  be  expected.  These  Powers 
were  assumed  to  exist  apart  from  our  thought,  in 
time  and  space,  and  to  work  in  time.  They  have, 
as  workers  in  time,  no  certain  and  eternal  signifi- 
cance. A  single  Infinite  Power  is,  properly  speak- 
ing, a  misnomer.  If  a  power  produces  something 
that  is  external  to  itself,  then  the  very  idea  of  such 
an  occurrence  implies  another  power,  separate  from 
the  first,  and  therefore  limiting  it.  If  however  the 
power  is  identical  with  its  own  products,  then  the 
name  power  no  longer  properly  belongs  to  it.  For, 
as  we  shall  see  when  we  come  to  speak  of  the  world 
in  its  other  aspect,  namely,  as  eternal,  the  conceptions 
of  power  and  product,  of  cause  and  effect,  and  of 
all  like  existences,  are  found  to  be  only  subordinate 
to  the  highest  conception  of  the  world  as  Thought. 
For  the  Eternal  Thought  are  all  these  powers ;  but 
in  themselves  they  belong  to  the  flux  of  things. 
Each  one  of  them  says,  Not  in  me,  when  you  ask  it 
for  the  significance  of  the  world  as  a  whole.  Each 
power  says :  "  I  work  here  along  with  the  others. 
I  fight,  I  strive,  I  conquer,  I  obey,  I  seek  my  ends 
as  I  can.  But  beyond  me  are  the  conditions  that 
limit  me. "  And  these  conditions  are  the  other 
powers.  The  world  of  powers  is  the  world  of  the 
children  of  the  dragon's  teeth.  Their  struggles  are 


288        THE  RELIGIOUS   ASPECT   OF   PHILOSOPHY. 

endless.  The  only  religion  that  they  can  teach  is  the 
religion  of  endurance  and  of  courage.  Or  one  may 
compare  them  to  the  warriors  in  king  Atli's  house. 
Only  the  all-seeing  Eternal  Thought  can  possibly 
discover  their  significance.  Of  themselves  they  are 
just  the  fighters  in  the  blood  and  dust  of  the  ban- 
queting hall. 

All  this  we  just  now  affirm  without  full  proof. 
But  our  previous  discussion  has  been  one  long  illus- 
tration of  it.  You  find  or  think  you  find  in  the 
world  a  religiously  valuable  power  or  tendency  at 
work.  But  at  once  there  stands  beside  it  its  sworn 
foe.  Is  it  Evolution  that  you  have  found  ?  There 
stands  beside  it  Dissolution.  Is  it  the  tender  care  of 
a  fatherly  nature  for  the  very  sparrows  ?  Then  ap- 
pears beside  it  the  cruelty  and  deceit  of  nature.  Is 
it  the  beauty  of  the  world  that  suggests  a  power- 
loving  beauty?  Nay,  but  the  rottenness  and  the 
horror  of  natural  disease  and  decay  assert  as  boldly 
the  workings  of  a  power  that  hates  beauty.  Are 
all  these  seeming  powers  just  mere  phantoms,  whose 
truth  is  in  the  laws  of  physics  ?  Then  the  world  is 
a  vast  wreck  of  colliding  molecules.  Are  these  pow- 
ers real  tendencies  ?  Then  their  fight  is  seemingly 
endless.  The  world  of  the  powers  is  indeed  full  of 
physical  law,  because  and  only  because  its  facts  are 
found,  by  means  of  thought  that  has  a  deeper  foun- 
dation, to  be  cases  of  certain  general  rules.  But 
for  our  religious  purpose,  this  world  of  the  powers 
seems  a  chaos. 

"  But,"  says  some  one,  "  all  this  is  no  disproof  of 
the  existence  of  a  real  but  to  us  not  perfectly  clear 


THE  WORLD   OF  DOUBT.  289 

harmony  of  all  the  powers.  This  is  simply  absence 
of  proof."  Yes ;  but  if  proof  is  what  we  want,  and 
if  every  single  power  sends  us  beyond  itself  for  the 
interpretation  of  the  meaning  of  the  whole,  we  can- 
not hope  to  grasp  that  meaning  so  long  as  we  avoid 
studying  the  world  in  its  eternal  aspect.  The  pow- 
ers themselves  make  and  unmake.  We  understand 
them  not.  They  remind  us  of  the  night-scene  of 
Faust :  — 

Faust.   Was  weben  die  dort  um  den  Rabenstein  ? 
Mephistopheles.  Weiss  nicht  was  sie  kochen  uiid  schaffen. 
Faust.   Schweben  auf,  schweben  ab,  neigen  sich,  beugen  sich. 
Mephistopheles.   Erne  Hexenkunst. 
Faust.    Sie  streuen  und  weihen. 
Mephistopheles.   Vorbei !  Vorbei ! 

And  if  we  will  hear  the  wisdom  of  Mephistopheles 
about  all  this,  he  has  elsewhere  given  his  view,  which, 
as  an  opinion  about  the  world  of  powers  by  one  of 
the  more  authoritative  powers  in  it,  is  worthy  of 
as  much  respect  as  any  other  suggestion  from  an 
equally  limited  being :  — 

"  Was  soil  uns  dann  das  ewige  Schaffen  ! 

Geschaffenes  zu  nichts  hinwegzuraffen  ! 
'  Da  ist's  vorbei ! '  Was  ist  daran  zu  leseu  ? 

Es  ist  so  gut  als  war'es  nicht  gewesen. 

Und  treibt  sich  doch  im  Kreis,  als  wenn  es  ware. 

Ich  liebte  mir  dafiir  das  Ewig-Leere." 

And  possibly  it  would  be  hard  for  us  to  be  sure  of 
much  more  meaning  in  this  world  of  powers  as  such, 
than  Mephistopheles  has  found. 

For  us,  we  turn,  not  with  despair,  but  with  hope, 
elsewhere.  We  go  to  seek  the  Eternal,  not  in  ex- 
perience, but  in  the  thought  that  thinks  experience. 

19 


290         THE  RELIGIOUS  ASPECT   OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

Our  hope  is  not  less  because  we  have  found  in  the 
temporal  a  world  of  doubt.  Our  song  is  simply 
the  "  Good-by  proud  world,  I'm  going  home"  of 
the  religious  minds  of  all  ages.  The  truly  religious 
elements  of  theism  are  not  hurt  by  the  destruction 
of  traditions  about  theistic  arguments.  It  is  only  an 
example  of  shallow  thought  when  either  the  destruc- 
tive or  the  constructive  thinkers  imagine  that  the  bat- 
tle is  decided  if  the  world  of  the  powers  is  judged 
in  one  way  or  in  another.  Religion  is  as  independ- 
ent of  all  that  as  Sirius  is  independent  of  the  north 
wind. 


CHAPTER   IX. 

THE  WORLD   OF   THE   POSTULATES. 

Das  bestandige  Wetzen  der  Messer  1st  langweilig,  wenn  man  Nichts 
zu  schneiden  vorhat.  —  LOTZE,  Metaphysik. 

What 's  so  false  as  truth  is 
False  to  thee  ? 

BROWNING. 

IF  the  reader  has  become  thoroughly  weary  of  the 
world  of  doubt,  we  are  only  glad  of  the  fact.  Armed 
with  a  genuine  philosophy,  a  man  may  indeed  go 
back  to  that  world,  and  find  in  it  an  expression  of 
ideal  truth  in  empirical  form.  We  hope  to  have 
such  a  right  ourselves  in  time ;  but,  without  a  well 
thought  out  philosophy,  a  man  venturing  into  the 
world  of  empirical  facts  to  find  there  any  religious 
significance  actually  discovers  himself  to  be  in  a  nest 
of  hornets  ;  and  he  deserves  as  much.  We  desired 
to  bring  the  reader  to  feel  this  with  us ;  else  our 
own  prudent  flight  from  that  world  to  another  might 
seem  to  him  unnecessary.  Now  we  are  ready  to 
come  nearer  to  our  former  question.  What  right 
has  any  one  to  assume  that  empirical  external  world 
at  all  as  having  any  absolute  truth  ?  "  O  thou  that 
hast  troubled  us,"  we  may  say,  "  what  art  thou  at 
bottom  more  than  our  own  assumption  ?  "  What 
right  has  that  external  world  to  be  the  sole  region 


292         THE   RELIGIOUS   ASPECT   OF   PHILOSOPHY. 

where  we  could  seek  the  religious  truth,  when  per- 
chance the  external  world,  as  we  assumed  it,  is  not 
a  truth  at  all  ?  Let  us  consider  once  more  our  steps. 
Perchance  the  religiously  inspiring  reality  is  in  some 
higher  world.  If  we  are  only  skeptical  enough,  per- 
chance we  shall  find  that  Reality.  Then,  indeed, 
the  old  assumption  of  an  external  world  of  empir- 
ical facts  may  remain  a  part  of  our  future  thought, 
but  it  will  get  a  new  sense,  and  occupy  a  new  place. 

The  first  answer  that  occurs  to  this  our  question 
about  the  meaning  of  the  external  world  that  has 
so  far  troubled  us,  is  this :  The  assumed  world  is 
no  fixed  datum,  to  which  we  are  bound  to  submit  at 
all  hazards,  but  a  postulate,  which  is  made  to  sat- 
isfy certain  familiar  human  needs.  If  this  postulate 
is  found  to  have  no  religious  significance,  we  may 
supplement  the  doubt  thus  arising  by  remembering 
that  we  who  postulated  once  have  the  right  to  postu- 
late again.  Our  religiously  satisfactory  truth  may 
be  reached,  not  by  hypotheses  about  powers  in  the 
empirical  world,  but  by  a  deeper  faith  in  something 
that  is  eternal,  and  behind  or  above  the  world  of  the 
senses. 

This  view  gives  us  a  new  world,  the  world  of  the 
Postulates.  We  cannot  be  content  to  remain  in  this 
world,  but  we  must  pass  through  it  on  our  way  up- 
wards. Let  us  hear  it  described. 


I. 

The  world  of  Doubt  has  passed  before  us,  a  huge 
mass  of  inexplicable  facts.     Here  and  there  we  find 


THE   WORLD   OF   THE   POSTULATES.  293 

a  connection  ;  we  hope  that  we  shall  soon  find  more 
connection  ;  but  still  the  vast  plan,  if  indeed  there 
be  a  plan,  we  search  for  in  vain.  But  now,  strangely 
enough,  all  this  doubt  affects  in  no  wise  the  willing 
trustfulness  of  our  devotion  to  the  interests,  not  only 
of  common  life,  but  also  of  science.  The  doubt  con- 
fuses -us  only  when  we  talk  of  religion.  That  the 
world  as  a  whole  is  dark,  nobody  admits  more  cheer- 
fully than  does  the  modern  scientific  man,  even  when 
he  looks  to  his  science  for  all  his  religious  consola- 
tion. For  he  seeks  no  consolation  save  what  the 
phenomena  as  such  furnish.  But  his  philosophical 
doubt  about  the  ultimate  foundation  of  science  is 
no  check  to  his  scientific  ambition.  He  believes  in 
science  just  as  ardently  as  if  he  did  not  in  the  very 
first  breath  of  each  new  philosophical  dispute  de- 
clare that  the  real  world  is  unknowable.  His  faith 
in  the  methods  of  his  specialty  is  as  firm  as  his  in- 
difference to  all  extra  -  scientific  speculation.  His 
work  is  in  fact  done  with  a  kind  of  instinctive  con- 
fidence in  himself  and  his  fellows.  The  instinct  is 
no  doubt  highly  trained,  but  it  remains  an  instinct, 
and  a  delightful  one  it  is  to  him.  The  untrained 
instincts  of  the  unscientific  man  must  indeed  be  crit- 
icised and  altered  in  many  respects  ere  they  can 
serve  the  purposes  of  science  ;  but,  after  all  the  crit- 
icisms and  alterations,  the  instinct  remains  with  al- 
most all  men  an  instinct,  —  useful,  pleasing,  yes,  in- 
dispensable ;  but  its  philosophical  justification  few 
people  care  to  know,  while  its  self-confidence  every 
scientific  essay,  or  lecture,  or  instructor  will  attest. 
Why  now  is  it  that,  trusting  as  we  all  do  this  scien- 


\Z9£>        THE   RELIGIOUS   ASPECT   OF   PHILOSOPHY. 

tific  instinct,  we  all  feel  it  hard  to  give  a  like  trust 
to  the  religious  instinct,  whose  most  general  tendency 
is  to  have  some  sort  of  faith  in  the  goodness  of 
things?  Why  is  it  that  the  doubtfulness  and  the 
contradictions  of  the  real  world  seem  to  everybody 
to  throw  a  cloud  upon  religion,  even  when  it  is  not 
supernatural  religion,  but  to  have  no  significance 
whatever  for  the  bases  of  science?  This  scientific 
notion  of  a  world  of  law,  all  of  whose  facts  could 
conceivably  be  predicted  by  one  formula,  why  does 
that  remain  in  our  minds  untouched  by  the  doubts 
of  the  skeptical  philosophers,  while  the  same  skep- 
ticism at  once  seems  to  remove  from  us  that  trust  in 
the  moral  goodness  of  things  which  religion  has 
tried  to  establish  in  our  hearts?  Shall  the  world 
be  indifferent  to  one  set  of  our  ideals,  and  not  to 
another  ?  Shall  the  moral  value  of  things  be  dark, 
and  not  also  their  value  for  the  purposes  of  science  ? 
Why  is  the  one  doctrine  so  different  from  the  other  ? 
I  You  are  placed  in  a  world  of  confusion,  and  you  as- 
'  sert  that  in  its  ultimate  and  eternal  nature  it  answers 
your  moral  needs.  That  seems  presumptuous.  You 
did  not  make  that  world.  How  do  you  know  whether 
it  cares  for  your  moral  ideals  ?  Very  well  then,  be 
impartial.  You  are  placed  in  a  world  of  confusion, 
and  you  assert  that  it  answers  your  intellectual 
needs,  namely,  that  it  is  a  world  of  order,  whose 
facts  could  be  reduced  to  some  rational  and  intelligi- 
ble unity.  What  business  have  you  to  do  that  ?  In 
both  cases  you  transcend  experience.  Nature  gives 
you  in  experience  partial  evil  that  you  cannot  in  all 
cases  perceive  to  be  universal  good.  Nature  also 


THE   WORLD   OF   THE   POSTULATES.  295 

gives  you  in  experience  partial  chaos  that  you  can- 
not in  all  cases  perceive  to  be  universal  order.  But 
unwaveringly  you  insist  that  nature  is  orderly,  that 
the  chaos  is  an  illusion ;  and  still  you  do  not  feel 
ready  to  insist  that  the  partial  evil  is  universal  good. 
Why  is  this  so  ?  Is  the  ethical  side  of  reality  less 
important  than  the  other?  Or  is  it  the  very  im- 
portance of  the  religious  aspect  of  things  that  makes 
us  more  ready  to  doubt  the  truth  of  this  aspect  ? 

Such  questions  occur  to  us  as  suggesting  a  possi- 
ble way  out  of  our  difficulties.  It  is  not  exactly  our 
desired  way,  but  is  it  not  possibly  a  good  way  ?  Sci- 
ence, namely,  uses  a  certain  kind  of  faith,  whenever 
such  faith  is  practically  necessary.  This  scientific 
faith  is  indeed  no  faith  in  particular  uninvestigated 
facts,  but  it  is  a  faith  in  general  methods  and  princi- 
ples. The  creed  of  science  knows  of  no  dogmas 
about  unexperienced  single  facts,  as  such  ;  but  it  does 
know  of  dogmas  about  the  general  form  of  the  laws 
that  must  be  assumed  to  govern  all  experience.  Now 
why  may  not  religion  be  reduced  to  certain  essential 
general  and  fundamental  moral  demands,  that  we 
must  make  in  the  presence  of  reality  ?  Why  are  not 
these  a  legitimate,  yes,  a  morally  necessary  object  of 
faith  ?  Why,  as  the  scientific  man  postulates  a  the- 
oretical rationality  in  the  world,  may  not  we  postu- 
late a  moral  rationality  in  the  world  ?  These  ques- 
tions stand  in  our  path.  Might  not  the  answer  to 
them  transform  our  barren  doubts  into  something 
less  disheartening  ? 

We  see  what  all  this  supposed  religious  faith 
would  mean.  It  would  not  be  a  faith  in  any  partic- 


296         THE   RELIGIOUS   ASPECT   OF   PHILOSOPHY. 

ular  facts  of  experience  that  might  have  for  us  per- 
sonally a  selfish  value,  whether  greater  or  less.  It 
would  be,  like  the  scientific  faith,  wholly  general.  It 
would  demand  that  the  world  in  its  entirety  should 
be  regarded  as  in  some  higher  sense  morally  ra- 
tional. It  would  say :  The  real  world  must  be,  what- 
ever its  true  nature,  at  least  as  high  in  the  moral 
scale  as  my  highest  ideals  of  goodness.  Have  we  a 
right  to  such  a  faith  ?  Let  us  cautiously  consider 
this  point. 

But  at  once  we  must  distinguish  the  proposed  re- 
ligious faith  from  what  we  should  call  mere  blind 
faith.  Blind  faith  in  what  we  cannot  establish  is 
indeed  inadmissible.  But  then,  is  there  not  another 
kind  of  faith,  the  kind  that  Kant  used  in  his  prac- 
tical philosophy  ?  To  this  may  we  not  now  turn  ? 
Perhaps  the  world  of  the  powers,  approached  in  the 
usual  way,  is  dark,  but  the  world  for  the  practical 
reason  may  be  opened  in  another  way.  Kant  said,  in 
effect :  "  Such  and  such  supersensual  realities,  of  re- 
ligious significance,  cannot  be  theoretically  proven  ; 
but  we  can  see  why  we  ought  to  postulate  their  ex- 
istence, that  is,  we  can  see  wliy  we  ought  to  act  as 
if  they  existed.  Behind  the  veil  of  sense,  we  must 
postulate  that  there  is  an  intelligible  world,  in  which 
all  is  harmony,  and  in  which  the  highest  good  is 
realized."  May  we  not  also  try  with  Kant  to  do 
this  ? 

We  shall  in  any  case  find  this  effort,  an  effort 
that  has  been  so  often  made  since  Kant,  a  subject 
well  worth  our  study  and  careful  examination.  In 
truth  it  is  not  by  itself  satisfactory ;  but  we  shall 


THE  WORLD   OF   THE   POSTULATES.  297 

see  that  it  enters  as  one  moment  into  the  higher 
view  that  we  shall  hereafter  reach.  So,  in  our  own 
way,  we  shall  now  try  to  answer  the  question  sug- 
gested to  us  by  Kant's  method.  Does  not  then  the 
'religious  aspect  of  the  world  lie  in  the  fact  that,  do 
, spite  the  contradictions  of  the  world  of  sense,  we 
may,  and  indeed,  morally  speaking,  must  postulate, 
that  the  Eternal,  of  which  this  world  is  the  mere 
show,  is  in  itself  absolutely  righteous?  We  shall 
not  be  able  to  answer  this  question  with  a  simple 
affirmative  ;  but  still,  postulates  must  enter  in  some 
wise  into  every  moment  of  our  lives,  and  must  there- 
fore have  some  value  in  religion. 


II. 

In  the  last  chapter  we  sought  for  a  demonstration 
of  religious  truth,  and  found  none.  But  perhaps  it 
was  not  demonstration  that  we  should  have  sought. 
Possibly  religion  may  be  content  to  rest  on  postu- 
lates. 

A  postulate  is  a  mental  way  of  behavior.  In  so 
far  it  is  like  all  other  thought.  In  general,  to  be- 
lieve that  a  thing  exists  is  to  act  as  if  it  existed. 
But  the  act  may  be  forced  upon  one,  or  it  may  be 
freely  chosen.  One  cannot  fail  to  act  upon  the  prin- 
ciple that  2  +  2  i=  4,  so  soon  as  he  perceives  it.  But 
one  may  voluntarily  determine  to  act  in  a  given  way, 
not  being  rationally  forced  so  to  do,  and  well  know- 
ing the  risk.  In  such  cases  one  voluntarily  takes 
to  himself  the  form  of  belief  called  a  postulate. 
Thus,  apart  from  any  philosophic  theory,  we  all  pos- 


298         THE   RELIGIOUS  ASPECT   OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

tulate  a  certain  kind  of  uniformity  in  nature.  We 
do  so,  whenever  we  reflect  upon  the  matter,  volun- 
tarily. For  we  then  say  that  surprises  are  always 
possible,  and  that  any  law  may  have  exceptions,  but 
that  we  must  act  as  if  we  knew  certain  laws  to  have 
no  possible  exceptions.  Postulates,  however,  are  not 
blind  faith.  Postulates  are  voluntary  assumptions 
of  a  risk,  for  the  sake  of  a  higher  end.  Passive  faith 
dares  not  face  doubt.  The  postulate  faces  doubt, 
and  says  :  "  So  long  as  thou  canst  not  make  thyself 
an  absolute  and  certain  negative,  I  propose  to  act  as 
if  thou  wert  worthless,  although  I  do  well  see  thy 
force."  Blind  faith  is  emotion,  and  often  cowardly 
emotion.  The  postulate  is  deliberate  and  courageous 
volition ._  Blind  faith  says  :  "  I  dare  not  question." 
The  postulate  says :  "  I  dare  be  responsible  for  as- 
suming." Examples  of  both  are  very  common. 
Blind  faith  the  fond  parent  has,  who  says  of  his 
wicked  son  :  "  I  know  tfeat  he  must  be  good,  hence 
I  will  not  suspect  him,  nor  train  him  ;  I  will  not 
watch  him,  nor  warn  others  against  him."  A  pos- 
tulate the  wise  parent  makes,  who  sends  his  full- 
grown  son  boldly  out  into  the  world,  with  the  best 
attainable  safeguards,  saying :  "  It  is  useless  to  keep 
him  longer  in  leading-strings,  or  to  protect  him  from 
the  world.  It  is  now  his  place  to  fight  his  own  bat- 
tles, since  I  have  done  what  I  could  to  get  him  ready. 
I  postulate  that  he  will  win  the  fight ;  I  treat  him, 
and  must  treat  him,  as  if  he  were  sure  to  win,  al- 
though T  well  know  the  risks."  The  sea-captain 
beginning  his  voyage  postulates  that  he  can  get 
through.  The  general  postulates  that  he  will  be 


THE   WORLD   OF   THE   POSTULATES.  299 

victorious.  The  Prime  Minister  of  a  country  postu- 
lates that  he  can  do  his  country  better  service  than 
could  the  Opposition.  We  all  postulate  that  our 
lives  are  worth  the  trouble.  Yet  we  all  know  per- 
fectly well  that  many  just  such  postulates  must  in 
the  nature  of  things  be  blunders.  But  they  imply 
not  blind  faith,  but  active  faith.  With  blind  faith 
little  good  is  done  in  the  world ;  without  active  faith, 
expressed  in  postulates,  very  little  practical  good 
can  be  done  from  day  to  day.  Blind  faith  is  the 
ostrich  behind  the  bush.  The  postulate  stands  out. 
like  the  lion  against  the  hunters.  The  wise  shall  live 
by  postulates. 

III. 

But  how  is  this  postulating  activity  actually  re- 
lated to  our  knowledge  of  reality?  Much  more 
closely  than  one  might  suppose.  Very  much  of  our 
thought  naturally  rests  upon  a  blind  faith,  or  upon 
what  many  take  to  be  a  blind  faith ;  but  this,  when 
we  reflect  upon  it  with  due  attention  to  the  office  it 
fills,  is  transformed  before  our  eyes  into  practically 
unavoidable  postulates.  Such  are  the  assumptions 
upon  which  our  science  rests  in  forming  its  ideal  of 
an  "  universal  formula."  There  may  indeed  be  some 
deeper  basis  for  these  postulates  of  science.  But 
most  men  know  nothing  of  this  basis.  And  so,  when 
we  accepted  in  our  last  chapter  these  postulates,  we 
had  to  admit  that  they  are  a  kind  of  faith.  If  we 
then  nevertheless  objected  to  certain  religious  doc- 
trines that  they  rest  on  insufficient  evidence,  we  did 
this  because  they  set  themselves  up  as  dogmas. 


300         THE   RELIGIOUS   ASPECT   OF   PHILOSOPHY. 

With  further  consideration,  we  might  coine  to  accept 
some  one  of  them  again  in  the  form,  not  of  a  demon- 
strable dogma,  but  of  a  practically  unavoidable  pos- 
tulate, uncertain  of  course,  but  taken  and  to  be  taken 
on  risk ;  just  as  every  one  of  us  goes  through  the 
world  taking  all  sorts  of  risks  day  by  day.  Any- 
thing not  contradictory  may  be  a  possible  object  of 
postulates ;  although,  again,  every  postulate  is  to  be 
assumed  only  after  careful  criticism,  and  only  be- 
cause we  cannot  do  better. 

To  do  justice  then  to  the  proper  office  of  postu- 
lates in  our  religious  theory,  we  must  sooner  or  later 
consider  in  what  cases  they  naturally  arise,  what  is 
the  proper  extent  of  their  use,  what  is  the  basis  upon 
which  they  can  be  made,  in  any  special  case,  to  rest ; 
and,  finally,  whether,  in  view  of  all  this,  we  can  give 
them  any  important  place  in  our  religious  doctrine. 
We  confess  at  once  that  we  want  something  much 
better  than  a  postulate  as  the  basis  of  our  religion, 
in  case  we  can  get  it.  If  postulates  are  to  have  any 
part  in  our  religion,  we  want  them  to  be  justified  by 
some  ultimate  religious  certainty  that  is  more  than 
a  postulate.  We  shall  investigate  all  that  in  time. 
We  shall  see  what  we  shall  see.  Meanwhile,  what 
is  the  work  of  postulates  in  the  actual  daily  life  of 
human  thought  ? 

Popular  belief  about  an  external  world  is  for  the 
first  an  active  assumption  or  acknowledgment  of 
something  more  than  the  data  of  consciousness. 
What  is  directly  given  in  our  minds  is  not  external. 
All  direct  data  are  internal  facts ;  and  in  the  strict- 
est sense  all  data  are  direct.  Suppose  a  merely  pas- 


THE   WORLD   OF    THE   POSTULATES.  301 

sive  acceptance  of  what  is  in  consciousness,  and  you 
have  no  belief  in  an  external  world.  An  addition  to 
the  data  of  consciousness,  a  more  or  less  clearly  vol- 
untary reaction,  is  involved  in  your  idea  of  external 
reality.  The  truth  of  this  principle  appears  when 
your  belief  in  any  particular  object  is  called  in  ques- 
tion. You  hold  that  you  see  yonder  a  snowy  moun- 
tain. Your  companion  insists  that  beyond  the  wide 
misty  valley  there  is  to  be  seen  only  a  gray  cloud. 
You  reassert  your  belief,  and  in  the  reassertion  feel 
more  definitely  than  at  first  the  active  addition  of 
your  own  belief  to  the  meagre  data  of  sense.  The 
addition  existed,  however,  in  your  first  assertion. 
Or  again,  one  man  is  trying,  perchance  in  sport,  to 
make  another  doubt  the  existence  of  material  ob- 
jects. "  There  is  no  external  matter,"  says  the  first. 
"  There  are  but  these  states  of  consciousness  in  our 
minds.  Nothing  beyond  them  corresponds  to  them." 
The  second,  maintaining  the  position  of  the  man  of 
common  sense,  retorts  sharply :  "  Doubtless  I  cannot 
refute  altogether  your  fine-spun  arguments  ;  but  they 
are  nevertheless  nonsense.  For  I  persist  in  believing 
in  this  world  of  sense.  I  live  in  it,  I  work  for  it,  my 
fellows  believe  in  it,  our  hearts  are  bound  up  in  it, 
our  success  depends  upon  our  faith.  Only  dreamers 
doubt  it.  I  am  not  a  dreamer.  Here  is  a  stone  ; 
I  hit  it.  Here  is  a  precipice  ;  I  fear  and  shun  it. 
My  strongest  conviction  is  concerned  with  the  exist- 
ence of  this  world  of  sense.  Do  your  worst ;  I  am 
not  afraid  of  talk."  Thus  then  by  every  device  of 
the  active  spirit,,  by  reminding  himself  of  his  most 
cherished  interests,  of  his  affections  and  hatreds,  by 


802         THE   RELIGIOUS   ASPECT    OF   PHILOSOPHY. 

arousing  his  social  sentiments,  by  bodily  acts,  the 
practical  man  preserves  himself  from  fantastical  spec- 
ulation. When  better-trained  thinkers  call  the  belief 
in  an  external  reality  "  a  natural  conviction,  to  be  re- 
tained until  we  are  compelled  to  abandon  it,"  or  "  a 
convenient  working  hypothesis,  to  be  received  on  the 
testimony  of  consciousness,  testimony  assumed  to  be 
trustworthy  until  the  opposite  is  proven,"  what  are 
these  but  similar  practical  considerations,  appeals  to 
the  will  ?  Concerning  data  of  immediate  conscious- 
ness such  remarks  would  be  wholly  out  of  place. 
That  I  see  a  certain  color  at  this  moment  is  not  a 
"  convenient  working  hypothesis."  Is  consciousness 
merely  a  "presumably  trustworthy  witness"  when  it 
testifies  to  the  pangs  of  toothache?  Nobody  could 
balance  evidence  as  to  the  reality  of  his  sensation 
qud  sensation  when  consciousness  is  filled  with  the 
sound  of  a  street-organ.  Sound,  color,  pang,  these 
are  data,  not  merely  things  believed  in.  But  the 
external  world  —  that  is  actively  accepted  as  being 
symbolized  or  indicated  by  the  present  conscious- 
ness, not  as  being  given  in  the  present  consciousness. 
In  short,  the  popular  assertion  of  an  external 
world,  being  an  assertion  of  something  beyond  the 
data  of  consciousness,  must  begin  in  an  activity  of 
judgment  that  does  more  than  merely  reduce  present 
data  to  order.  Such  an  assertion  must  be  an  active 
construction  of  non-data.  We  do  not  receive  in  our 
senses,  but  we  posit  through  our  judgment,  whatever 
external  world  there  may  for  us  be.  If  there  is 
really  a  deeper  basis  for  this  postulate  of  ours,  still, 
at  the  outset,  it  is  just  a  postulate. 


THE  WORLD   OF   THE   POSTULATES.  303 

All  theories,  all  hypotheses  as  to  the  external 
world,  ought  to  face  this  fact  of  thought.  If  the  his- 
tory of  popular  speculation  on  these  topics  could  be 
written,  how  much  of  cowardice  and  shuffling  would 
be  found  in  the  behavior  of  the  natural  mind  before 
the  question :  "  How  dost  thou  know  of  an  external 
reality  ?  "  Instead  of  simply  and  plainly  answer- 
ing :  "  I  mean  by  the  external  world  in  the  first  place 
something  that  I  accept  or  demand,  that  I  posit, 
postulate,  actively  construct  on  the  basis  of  sense- 
data,"  the  natural  man  gives  us  all  kinds  of  vague 
compromise  answers  :  "  I  believe  in  the  external  re- 
ality with  a  reasonable  degree  of  confidence ;  the 
experience  of  mankind  renders  the  existence  of  ex- 
ternal reality  ever  more  and  more  probable ;  the 
Creator  cannot  have  intended  to  deceive  us ;  it  is  un- 
natural to  doubt  as  to  external  reality ;  only  young 
people  and  fantastic  persons  doubt  the  existence  of 
the  external  world ;  no  man  in  his  senses  doubts  the 
external  reality  of  the  world ;  science  would  be  im- 
possible were  there  no  external  world  ;  morality  is 
undermined  by  doubts  as  to  the  external  world ;  the 
immovable  confidence  that  we  all  have  in  the  prin- 
ciple of  causality  implies  the  fixity  of  our  belief  in 
an  external  cause  of  our  sensations."  Where  shall 
these  endless  turnings  and  twistings  have  an  end  ? 
The  habits  of  the  law-courts  as  condensed  into  "  rules 
of  evidence,"  the  traditional  rules  of  debate,  the 
fashion  of  appealing  to  the  "  good  sense  "  of  honor- 
able gentlemen  opposite,  the  motives  of  shame  and 
fear,  the  dread  of  being  called  "  fantastical,"  Philis- 
tine desire  to  think  with  the  majority,  Philistine 


304         THE   RELIGIOUS  ASPECT    OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

terror  of  all  revolutionary  suggestions,  the  fright  or 
the  anger  of  a  man  at  finding  some  metaphysician 
trying  to  question  what  seem  to  be  the  foundations 
upon  which  one's  bread  winning  depends,  —  all  these 
lesser  motives  are  appealed  to,  and  the  one  ultimate 
motive  is  neglected.  The  ultimate  motive  with  the 
man  of  e very-day  life  is  the  will  to  have  an  exter- 
nal world.  Whatever  consciousness  contains,  reason 
will  persist  in  spontaneously  adding  the  thought: 
"But  there  shall  be  something  beyond  this."  The 
external  reality  as  such  (e.  g.  the  space  beyond  the 
farthest  star,  any  space  not  accessible,  even  whatever 
is  not  at  any  moment  given  in  so  far  as  it  is  viewed 
from  that  moment,  in  particular  every  past  event)  is 
never  a  datum.  We  construct  but  do  not  receive 
the  external  reality.  The  "  immovable  certainty  "  is 
not  such  a  dead  passive  certainty  as  that  with  which 
we  receive  a  pain  or  an  electric  shock.  The  pop- 
ular assurance  of  an  external  world  is  the  fixed  de- 
termination to  make  one,  now  and  henceforth. 

In  the  general  popular  conceptions  of  reality  we 
find  then  the  first  use  of  postulates.  We  have  as  yet 
no  justification  for  them.  But  even  thus  we  get  no 
adequate  idea  of  their  use  and  of  their  number.  We 
must  look  at  the  facts  of  every-day  mental  life  a  lit- 
tle more  closely.  For  there  is  a  curious  tendency 
of  many  to  make  these  postulates  appear  something 
else  than  what  they  are.  Often  they  are  interpreted 
as  if  they  were  no  postulates  at  all,  but  data  of 
sense.  Often,  again,  their  active  nature  is  disre- 
garded in  yet  another  way,  and  they  appear  as  blind 
passive  faith.  Such  in  fact  they  must  appear  if  we 


THE   WORLD   OF   THE   POSTULATES.  805 

reflect  upon  their  mere  content,  and  not  upon  the 
processes  by  which  we  get  them.  But  if  we  inter- 
pret them  rightly,  we  shall  see  that  they  ought  to  be 
regarded  as  beliefs,  taken  for  the  first  on  risk,  and 
because  the  risk  is  worth  taking. 


IV. 

Sometimes  we  hear  men  asserting  that  their  be- 
liefs are  independent  of  their  will.  Such  a  man 
will  express  himself  in  some  such  way  as  the  follow- 
ing:— 

"  I  try  to  conquer  prejudice ;  but  having  done 
this,  I  can  do  no  more.  My  belief,  whatever  it  is, 
forms  itself  in  me.  I  look  on.  My  will  has  noth- 
ing to  do  with  the  matter.  I  can  will  to  walk  or 
eat ;  but  I  cannot  will  to  believe.  I  might  as  well 
will  that  my  blood  should  circulate." 

But  is  this  expression  a  fair  one  ?  Does  such  a 
man  really  remain  passive  in  the  struggle  that  goes 
on  within  him  ?  We  think  not.  These  beliefs  in 
such  a  man  have  resulted,  we  hold,  from  a  sort  of 
struggle  between  him  and  the  surrounding  world. 
The  world  has  tried  sometimes  to  check  his  thought, 
and  to  confine  it  to  one  channel ;  sometimes  to  con- 
fuse his  thought,  and  to  scatter  it  into  spray  before 
the  quick,  heavy  blows  of  innumerable,  disconnected 
sense  apparitions.  But  the  man,  if  he  is  a  man  of 
energy,  has  controlled  the  current  of  his  thought. 
He  has  fought  hard,  now  for  freedom  from  oppres- 
sive narrowness  of  thought,  now  for  wholeness  and 
unity  of  thought ;  and  perhaps  he  has  in  so  far  con- 

20 


306         THE   RELIGIOUS   ASPECT   OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

quered  as  to  be  the  master  of  a  manly  and  many- 
sided  system  of  doctrine.  We  think  him  responsible 
for  this  system;  and  we  hold  that  any  such  man 
ought  to  admit  the  responsibility. 

To  study  briefly  the  nature  of  the  process  involved 
in  all  such  cases  will  be  important  for  our  whole 
doctrine.  We  shall  see  thereby  how  much  our  the- 
ory of  the  world  must  itself  tend  to  fall  under  the 
head  of  the  purely  practical.  We  shall  appreciate 
also  the  limitations  of  ordinary  thought,  and  the 
need  of  some  higher  ideal  standard  to  rescue  us  from 
the  pure  subjectivity  of  mere  postulates.  And  we 
shall  be  contributing  by  the  way  to  a  question  of  ap- 
plied ethics,  the  question  of  the  morality  of  belief. 

Every  one  recognizes  that  at  least  our  more  ab- 
stract knowledge  depends  largely  upon  our  own 
mental  activity.  Knowing  is  not  mere  passive  re- 
ception of  facts  or  of  truths.  Learning  is  not  solely 
an  affair  of  the  memory.  The  man  that  without  re- 
flection commits  things  to  memory  is  justly  com- 
pared to  a  parrot,  and  might  yet  more  justly  be 
compared  to  the  sponge  of  Hamlet's  figure  :  "  It  is 
but  squeezing  you,  and,  sponge,  you  shall  be  dry 
again."  No  knowledge,  then,  without  active  hos- 
pitality in  the  mind  that  receives  the  knowledge. 
But  as  soon  as  we  recognize  in  mental  life  this  our 
power  to  modify  our  knowledge  by  means  of  our  own 
activity,  just  so  soon  do  all  the  old  comparisons  of 
the  mind  to  a  wax  tablet,  to  a  sheet  of  paper,  or  to 
other  like  passive  subjects  of  impression,  lose  for  us 
their  meaning.  Mental  life  becomes  for  us,  in  view 
of  these  facts,  a  field  of  constant  activity.  The  com- 


THE  WORLD   OF   THE   POSTULATES.  307 

monest  processes  of  knowledge  acquire  a  new  signifi- 
cance. 

Two  kinds  of  activity  are  concerned  in  the  attain- 
ment of  knowledge.  One  kind  consists  in  simply 
receiving  impressions  from  without,  such  as  sensa- 
tions, or,  on  a  higher  plane,  statements  of  truth ;  the 
other  consists  in  modifying  and  in  organizing  these 
impressions.  The  receptive  activity  is  partly  a  phys- 
ical activity,  since  the  one  who  receives  information 
must  use  his  eyes  and  ears,  must  keep  awake,  must 
at  times  move  about ;  and  this  receptive  activity  is 
also  partly  made  up  of  the  mechanical  processes  of 
the  memory.  Association  by  contiguity,  or  learning 
by  rote,  is  in  the  main  a  receptive  process,  though 
this  process  of  reception  requires  some  active  effort 
on  the  part  of  the  receiver.  Committing  words  and 
sentences  to  memory  is  often  hard  labor,  as  we  all 
of  us  learned  when  we  first  were  tortured  with  ill- 
wrought  geographies  and  grammars,  or  with  merci- 
less Latin  declensions  and  conjugations.  But  of  the 
whole  of  this  receptive  activity  we  shall  make  no 
further  mention  in  this  connection.  Simply  receiv- 
ing, keeping  your  mind  in  a  submissive  attitude, 
turning  your  eyes  in  the  proper  direction,  using  your 
ears,  writing  down  your  notes,  memorizing  whatever 
needs  memorizing  —  all  this  is  essential  to  knowl- 
edge, but  has  no  reactive  effect,  does  not  modify  the 
form  or  the  matter  of  your  knowledge.  Secondly, 
however,  knowledge  is  determined  for  each  of  us 
by  his  own  reaction  upon  what  he  receives  ;  and 
this  second  mentioned  kind  of  mental  activity,  that 
which  forms  our  topic  at  present,  consists  in  a  modi- 


308         THE   RELIGIOUS   ASPECT    OF   PHILOSOPHY. 

fication  as  well  as  in  an  organization  of  what  we  have 
received  from  without.  All  processes  of  reasoning, 
and  so  all  original  discoveries  in  science  and  in  phi- 
losophy, all  speculations,  theories,  dogmas,  controver- 
sies, and  not  only  these  complex  processes,  but,  as 
we  shall  see,  even  simple  judgments,  commonplace 
beliefs,  momentary  acts  of  attention,  involve  such 
independent  reaction  upon  the  material  furnished  to 
us  from  without.  The  nature  of  this  reaction  we 
are  further  to  examine. 

Let  us  consider  simpler  forms  of  knowledge. 
Sense-impressions  constantly  suggest  to  us  thoughts ; 
in  fact,  we  have  few  thoughts  that  are  not  either  im- 
mediately suggested  by  sense  -  impressions,  or  else 
sustained  in  their  course  by  a  continuous  stream  of 
suitable  sense-impressions.  To  carry  on  even  a  train 
of  abstract  reasoning,  sense-impressions  either  pres- 
ent or  repeated  seem  necessary  as  supports.  But 
when  sense-impressions  come  to  us,  what  transforms 
them  into  thought  ? 

The  answer  is,  First  of  all,  attention,  an  active 
mental  process.  The  sense-impression  is  itself  not 
yet  knowledge.  A  sense-impression  to  which  we 
give  no  attention  slips  through  consciousness  as  a 
man's  hand  through  water.  Nothing  grasps  and  re- 
tains it.  Little  effect  is  produced  by  it.  It  is  un- 
known. You  cannot  even  tell  what  it  is.  For  to 
know  what  such  an  unnoticed  impression  is  would 
be  to  pay  attention  to  it.  But  let  us  now  consider 
some  familiar  examples  of  the  working  of  attention. 
A  simple  instance  will  bring  home  to  us  how  the 
boundaries  of  our  consciousness  are  crowded  with  un- 


THE  WORLD   OF   THE   POSTULATES.  309 

known  impressions  —  unknown,  because  not  attended 
to ;  but  yet  in  some  inexplicable  way  a  part  of  our 
consciousness,  since  an  effort  of  attention  serves  to 
bring  them,  any  one  of  them,  cleafly  into  mental 
vision.  At  this  instant  you  are  looking  at  some- 
thing. Now,  without  moving  your  eyes,  try,  by 
merely  attending  to  your  visual  impressions,  to  say 
what  is  now  in  the  field  of  vision,  and  where  is  the 
boundary  line  of  the  field  of  vision.  The  experi- 
ment is  a  little  hard,  because  our  eyes,  condensed 
embodiments  as  they  are  of  tireless  curiosity,  are  al- 
ways restless,  and  rebel  when  you  try  to  hold  them 
fast.  But  conquer  them  for  an  instant,  and  watch 
the  result.  As  your  attention  roams  about  the  arti- 
ficially fixed  visual  field,  you  will  at  first,  indeed,  be 
confused  by  the  vagueness  of  all  but  the  centre  ;  but 
soon  you  will  find,  to  your  surprise,  that  there  are 
more  different  impressions  in  the  field  than  you  at 
first  can  distinguish.  One  after  another,  many  va- 
rious impressions  will  appear.  But  notice  :  you  can 
keep  your  attention  fixed  on  only  a  portion  of  the 
field  at  a  time.  The  rest  of  the  field  is  always  lost 
in  a  dim  haze.  You  must  be  receiving  impressions 
all  the  time  from  all  points  of  the  field.  But  all  of 
these,  except  the  few  to  which  you  pay  attention, 
nearly  or  quite  disappear  in  the  dim  thickets  that 
seem  to  surround  the  little  forest-clearing  made  by 
our  attentive  consciousness.  A  like  experiment  can 
be  tried  with  the  sense  of  hearing,  when  you  are  in 
a  large  room  full  of  people  who  are  talking  all  around 
you  in  many  independent  groups.  A  mass  of  sound 
comes  to  your  ear.  Consciousness  interferes  to  make 


810         THE   RELIGIOUS   ASPECT    OF   PHILOSOPHY. 

you  pick  out  one  or  another  of  the  series  of  sounds, 
an  act  which  is  indeed  made  possible  by  the  natural 
analytic  tendency  of  the  human  auditory  sense,  but 
which  does  not  take  place  without  a  noticeable  effort 
of  attention.  When  you  are  learning  a  foreign  lan- 
guage, and  are  for  a  while  much  among  those  who 
speak  it,  there  comes  a  time  when  your  ear  and 
mind  are  well  enough  trained  to  follow  and  under- 
stand ordinary  speakers  with  only  a  little  effort  of 
attention ;  but  yet,  at  this  stage,  you  are  able,  by 
simply  withdrawing  your  attention  a  mere  trifle,  to 
let  very  common  phrases  run  through  your  sense 
without  your  understanding  them  one  whit.  You 
can  thus,  by  a  slight  change  of  attention,  convert 
the  foreign  language  from  a  jargon  into  a  familiar 
speech,  and  back  again  into  a  jargon,  just  as,  in  the 
fixed  visual  field,  you  can  make  yourself  see  an  ob- 
ject pretty  plainly,  or  lose  it  altogether,  by  ceasing 
to  give  attention. 

All  these  instances,  which  could  be  indefinitely 
multiplied,  prove,  first,  that  what  we  call  attention 
modifies  the  knowledge  that  we  at  any  moment  get ; 
and  secondly,  that  this  modification,  through  atten- 
tion, may  take  place  without  any  change  in  the  im- 
pressions that  at  any  moment  come  from  without. 
The  first  stage  in  getting  knowledge  from  bare  sense- 
impressions  is  therefore  the  modification  of  sense  by 
attention  —  a  process  belonging  wholly  to  the  sub- 
jective side  ;  i.  e.  to  our  own  minds. 

But  what  is  attention  ?  and  how  does  it  modify 
sensation?  Apparently,  attention  in  the  previous 
instances  has  been  merely  a  power  to  increase  or  to 


THE   WORLD   OF   THE   POSTULATES.  311 

diminish  the  intensity  of  impressions.  But  is  this 
all  that  attention  does  ?  No  :  there  are  many  cases 
in  which  attention  directly  affects  the  quality,  at 
least  of  our  complex  impressions.  This  direct  modi- 
fication is  commonly  attended  by  some  alteration  of 
our  emotional  state.  It  is  a  familiar  fact,  that  in 
listening  to  a  series  of  regular  and  even  beats,  such 
as  the  strokes  of  an  engine,  or  of  a  pendulum,  or  the 
ticking  of  a  watch,  we  have  a  tendency  to  modify 
the  impressions  by  introducing  into  their  series  the 
more  elaborate  regularity  of  rhythm.  In  paying  at- 
tention to  them,  we  increase,  at  our  pleasure,  the  in- 
tensity of  every  third  or  fourth  beat  as  heard,  and 
so  make  a  rhythm,  or  series  of  measures,  out  of  the 
actually  monotonous  impressions.  Now  attention, 
which  here  first  acts  by  modifying  the  intensity  of 
impressions,  soon  produces  the  effect  of  qualitatively 
modifying  our  total  impression  of  the  whole  series. 
If  I  have  taken  the  fancy  to  listen  to  the  even 
strokes  in  quadruple  time,  intensifying  by  my  own 
act  every  fourth  stroke,  the  character  of  the  series  is 
changed  for  me.  The  impressions  are  less  monoto- 
nous, and  they  arouse  new  associations.  They  seem 
to  be  caused  by  some  force  that  rhythmically  in- 
creases and  decreases.  Perhaps  a  melody,  or  some 
phrase  of  a  few  words,  arises  in  my  mind,  and  per- 
sists in  associating  itself  with  the  strokes.  Probably 
some  vague  feeling,  as  of  rhythmic  motion  through 
the  air,  or  of  pleasure  or  of  displeasure  in  the  pres- 
ence of  some  rhythmically  moving  living  being,  is 
awakened.  Qualitatively,  my  consciousness  is  thus 
altered  through  my  attention.  I  seem  to  be  experi- 


312         THE  RELIGIOUS  ASPECT   OF   PHILOSOPHY. 

encing  something  that,  as  an  objective  reality,  I  do 
not  experience.  More  striking  becomes  this  quali- 
tative alteration  of  experience  through  attention, 
in  ca.se  you  bring  two  watches  of  different  beat,  or 
a  watch  and  a  clock,  and  listen  to  both  at  once  at 
the  distance  of  a  few  inches,  first,  perhaps,  stopping 
one  ear  to  avoid  confusion.  Here,  by  attention, 
you  make  or  try  to  make  a  compound  rhythm, 
and  this  effort  alters  a  good  deal  the  total  impres- 
sion that  you  derive  from  the  sound.  If  the  two 
series  are  such  that  a  simple  small  multiple  of  the 
interval  of  one  gives  you  a  simple  small  multiple  of 
the  other's  interval,  you  can  combine  the  two  series 
into  one  rhythm,  and  then  there  is  an  immediate 
impression  as  if  the  two  series  were  really  but  the 
complex  ticking  of  one  source  of  sound.  But  if  the 
series  will  not  agree,  there  is  an  odd  sense  of  some- 
thing wrong,  a  disappointed  effort  to  combine, 
joined,  perhaps,  with  a  tendency  to  hasten  one  of  the 
series,  so  as  to  make  it  agree  with  the  other.  An- 
other case  where  attention  alters  the  quality  of  total 
impressions,  and  not  merely  the  intensity  of  any 
part,  appears  in  certain  psychological  laboratory  ex- 
periments, described  by  Wundt  in  his  "Physiolo- 
gische  Psychologic."  Here,  for  the  sake  of  deter- 
mining the  actual  time  taken  by  an  act  of  attention, 
an  observer  is  to  make  an  electric  signal  as  soon  as 
he  becomes  conscious  of  a  certain  impression,  while 
the  impression  itself  is  produced  by  an  assistant  at  a 
time  exactly  determined.  The  source  of  the  impres- 
sion is  the  ringing  of  a  bell,  the  flash  of  an  electric 
spark,  or  something  of  the  kind  agreed  upon  at  the 


THE  WORLD   OF   THE  POSTULATES.  313 

outset.  To  distinguish  from  one  another  the  various 
causes  of  the  delay  of  the  signal,  the  conditions  of 
experiment  are  variously  modified.  In  one  set  of 
experiments,  the  observer  does  not  know  beforehand 
whether  he  is  to  experience  a  flash  of  light,  or  a 
sound,  or  some  sensation  of  touch,  nor  how  intense 
the  sensation  will  be,  nor  when  it  will  come ;  but  he 
knows  that  he  is  to  be  on  the  lookout  for  one  of  the 
three  kinds  of  sensation.  He  waits,  with  attention 
all  aroused.  In  this  case,  it  always  takes  him  longer 
to  signal  than  if  he  knew  beforehand  the  kind  and 
the  strength  of  the  coming  sensation.  Moreover,  his 
attention  now  makes  him  uneasy ;  the  coming  sen- 
sation is  expected,  with  signs  of  excitement,  and  is 
often  received  with  a  start.  Here  the  feeling  of  ef- 
fort that  accompanies  attention  affects  by  its  strength 
the  character  of  the  impression  received.  Moreover, 
in  many  of  these  experiments  there  appear  phenom- 
ena that  show  that  attention  alters  our  perception 
of  time,  not  merely  as  to  length,  but  also  as  to  se- 
quence ;  so  that  under  circumstances,  an  impression 
that  really  precedes  another  can  appear  in  conscious- 
ness as  succeeding  it.  Yet  more :  attention  some- 
times serves  to  combine  two  sets  of  simultaneous  im- 
pressions, and  to  make  them  seem  as  if  proceeding 
from  one  source. 

So  much  for  the  influence  of  attention  alone.  But 
what  is  attention  ?  We  reply,  evidently  an  active 
process.  When  impressions  are  modified  by  atten- 
tion, they  are  actively  modified.  And  if  you  ask 
about  the  nature  of  this  active  process,  the  reply  is, 
attention,  in  its  most  elementary  forms,  is  the  same 


314         THE   RELIGIOUS  ASPECT    OF   PHILOSOPHY. 

activity  that  in  a  more  developed  shape  we  commonly 
call  will.  We  attend  to  one  thing  rather  than  to 
another,  because  we  will  to  do  so,  and  our  will  is 
here  the  elementary  impulse  to  know.  Our  attention 
leads  us  at  times  into  error.  But  this  error  is  merely 
an  accompaniment,  the  result  of  our  will  activity. 
We  want  to  intensify  an  impression,  to  bring  it 
within  the  sphere  of  knowledge.  But  in  carrying 
out  our  impulse,  we  do  more  than  we  meant.  We  not 
only  bring  something  into  clearer  consciousness  that 
was  before  out  of  clear  consciousness,  but  we  quali- 
tatively modify  this  thing  in  attending  to  it.  I  want 
to  observe  a  series  of  beats,  and  in  observing  it,  I 
make  one  beat  in  three  or  four  seem  heavier  than  the 
others,  or  I  even  alter  the  apparent  length  of  one  in- 
terval in  three  or  four,  by  making  it  seem  longer 
than  the  others.  I  observe  a  series  of  visual  im- 
pressions, and  at  the  same  time  a  series  of  auditory 
impressions  ;  if  there  is  a  certain  agreement  between 
them,  I  irresistibly  unite  these  two  series  by  my  act 
of  attention  into  one  series,  and  refer  them  to  a  com- 
mon cause.  And  so  in  the  other  cases.  Attention 
seems  to  defeat,  in  part,  its  own  object.  Bringing 
something  into  the  field  of  knowledge  seems  to  be 
a  modifying,  if  not  a  transforming,  process. 

We  all  know  how  this  same  law  works  on  a  higher 
plane.  Giving  our  whole  attention  for  a  time  to  a 
particular  subject  seems  necessary  for  the  growth  of 
our  knowledge.  Yet  such  attention,  if  long  kept  up, 
always  modifies  our  power  to  know,  affects  our  whole 
mental  condition,  and  thus  injures  our  power  to  ap- 
preciate the  relations  between  the  subject  of  our 


THE   WORLD   OF   THE  POSTULATES.  315 

study  and  the  other  things  in  the  world.  Constant 
attention  to  one  thing  narrows  our  minds,  until  we 
fail  to  see  the  very  thing  we  are  looking  at.  Our 
lives  are  thus  really  passed  in  a  constant  flitting 
from  one  more  or  less  partial  and  distorted  view  of 
things  to  another,  from  this  one-sided  judgment  to 
that.  Change  the  book  you  are  reading,  and  your 
whole  notion  of  the  universe  suffers  some  momentary 
change  also.  Think  this  week  in  the  fashion  of 
Carlyle,  attending  to  things  as  he  brings  them  to 
your  attention,  and  human  life  —  in  fact,  the  whole 
world  of  being  as  you  thought  of  it  last  week,  when 
you  were  following  some  other  guide  —  becomes  mo- 
mentarily clouded.  This  truth  seems  out  of  relation 
to  that.  Your  change  of  attention  qualitatively  alters 
your  apprehension  of  truth.  Attending  now  even  to 
the  same  things,  you  view  them  in  new  lights.  The 
alteration  of  mental  attitude  becomes  confusing  to 
yourself.  But  refuse  to  make  any  such  changes,  set- 
tle down  steadfastly  to  some  one  way  of  regarding 
all  things,  and  your  world  becomes  yet  more  misty. 
You  see  only  a  few  things,  and  those  in  such  a  bad 
light  that  you  are  in  danger  of  utter  darkness.  Fre- 
quent change  of  mental  view  (we  of  course  do  not 
mean  constant  change  of  creed  or  of  occupation,  but 
only  frequent  alteration  of  the  direction  of  our 
thought)  is  essential  to  mental  health.  Yet  this 
alteration  implies  at  least  some  temporary  change  in 
our  knowing  powers,  and  so  some  change  in  our  ap- 
preciation of  truth. 

Before  going  on  to  speak  of  the  effect  of  our  own 
activity  upon  our  knowledge,  when  attention  is  com- 


316         THE   RELIGIOUS   ASPECT   OF   PHILOSOPHY. 

bined  with  active  recognition  of  impressions,  we 
want  to  formulate  the  law  that  governs  the  action 
of  attention  upon  sense-impressions  apart  from  rec- 
ognition. This  law  seems  pretty  well  established  by 
experience,  and  is,  at  all  events,  quite  simple.  It  is 
this  :  Any  act  of  attention  tends,  first,  to  strengthen 
the  particular  set  of  impressions  to  which  it  is  at  the 
moment  adapted ;  and  secondly,  to  modify  those  im- 
pressions in  such  a  way  as  shall  make  the  total  im- 
pression derived  from  them  all  as  simple  an  impres- 
sion as  possible.  These  two  statements  could  be 
reduced  to  one,  thus :  Attention  constantly  tends 
to  make  our  consciousness  more  definite  and  less 
complex;  that  is,  less  confused  and  more  united. 
More  definite,  less  confused  attention  tends  to  make 
consciousness ;  since,  out  of  many  vague  impressions, 
attention  fixes  upon  one  or  a  few,  and  helps  them 
to  crowd  out  the  others.  Less  complex  and  more 
united  or  integrated  attention  makes  the  impressions 
attended  to  ;  as  when,  for  the  indefinite  multiplicity 
of  the  successive  even  beats  of  a  watch  or  of  an  en- 
gine, attention  substitutes  the  simpler  form  of  a  ris- 
ing and  falling  rhythm  of  more  and  less  emphatic 
beats,  or  as  when  two  parallel  series  of  impressions 
are  reduced  to  one,  by  combination.  If  impressions 
are  so  complex  and  so  imperative  in  their  demands 
as  to  impede  greatly  the  simplifying  and  clarifying 
efforts  of  attention,  the  result  is  a  disagreeable  feel- 
ing of  confusion,  that  may  increase  to  violent  pain. 

This  law,  that  our  consciousness  constantly  tends 
to  the  minimum  of  complexity  and  to  the  maximum 
of  defmiteness,  is  of  great  importance  for  all  our 


THE  WORLD   OF   THE   POSTULATES.  317 

knowledge.  Here  we  have  a  limitation  that  cannot 
be  overleaped.  Whatever  we  come  to  know,  what- 
ever opinions  we  come  to  hold,  our  attention  it  is 
that  makes  all  our  knowing  and  all  our  believing 
possible ;  and  the  laws  followed  by  this,  our  own  ac- 
tivity of  attention  will  thus  determine  what  we  are 
to  know  and  what  we  are  to  believe.  If  things  have 
more  than  a  certain  complexity,  not  only  will  our 
limited  powers  of  attention  forbid  us  to  unravel  this 
complexity,  but  we  shall  strongly  desire  to  believe 
the  things  actually  much  simpler  than  they  are.  For 
our  thoughts  about  them  will  have  a  constant  ten- 
dency to  become  as  simple  and  definite  as  possible. 
Put  a  man  into  a  perfect  chaos  of  phenomena,  sights, 
sounds,  feelings  ;  and  if  the  man  continued  to  exist, 
and  to  be  rational  at  all,  his  attention  would  doubt- 
less soon  find  for  him  a  way  to  make  up  some  kind 
of  rhythmic  regularity,  which  he  would  impute  to  the 
things  about  him,  so  as  to  imagine  that  he  had  dis- 
covered some  law  of  sequence  in  this  mad  new  world. 
And  thus,  in  every  case  where  we  fancy  ourselves 
sure  of  a  simple  law  of  Nature,  we  must  remember 
that  a  good  deal  of  the  fancied  simplicity  may  be  due 
in  the  given  case  not  to  Nature,  but  to  the  ineradi- 
cable prejudice  of  our  own  minds  in  favor  of  regular- 
ity and  simplicity.  All  our  thought  is  determined, 
in  great  measure,  by  this  law  of  least  effort,  as  it  is 
found  exemplified  in  our  activity  of  attention. 

But  attention  is  not  the  only  influence  that  goes 
to  transform  sense-impressions  into  knowledge.  At- 
tention never  works  alone,  but  always  in  company 
with  the  active  process  of  recognizing  the  present 


318         THE  KELIGIOUS  ASPECT   OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

as  in  some  way  familiar,  and  of  constructing  in  the 
present  ideas  of  what  is  not  present.  At  these  two 
other  active  processes  we  must  very  briefly  glance. 

Recognition  is  involved  in  all  knowledge.  Recog- 
nition does  not  always  mean  a  definite  memory  of  a 
particular  past  experience  that  resembles  a  present 
one.  On  the  contrary,  recognition  is  frequently 
only  a  sense  of  familiarity  with  something  now  pres- 
ent, coupled  with  a  more  or  less  distinct  applying  of 
some  predicate  to  this  present  thing.  I  recognize  a 
horse,  a  landscape,  a  star,  a  friend,  a  piece  of  music, 
a  book,  when  I  feel  more  or  less  familiar  with  the 
impression  of  the  object  in  question,  and  when,  at 
the  same  time,  I  predicate  more  or  less  distinctly 
something  of  it.  This,  I  say,  is  my  friend,  or  the 
north  star,  or  Webster's  Dictionary,  or  Smith's 
horse.  Or,  perhaps,  in  recognizing,  I  recognize,  not 
merely  the  whole  object,  but  one  of  its  qualities, 
or  of  its  relation  to  other  things.  Then  I  say,  this 
is  large  or  small,  good  or  bad,  equal  or  unequal  to 
another  thing,  and  so  on.  In  all  these  cases,  recog- 
nition involves  a  lively  reaction  of  my  mind  upon  ex- 
ternal impressions.  Recognition  is  not  found  apart 
from  attention,  though  attention  may  exist  more  or 
less  completely  without  recognition.  Recognition 
completes  what  attention  begins.  The  attentive 
man  wants  to  know,  the  recognizing  man  knows,  or 
thinks  that  he  knows.  Recognition  implies  accom- 
panying attention.  Attention  without  recognition 
implies  wonder,  curiosity,  perplexity,  perhaps  terror. 
But  what  is  the  law  of  this  process  of  recognition  ? 
Does  the  process  affect  the  impressions  themselves 


THE   WORLD   OF   THE   POSTULATES.  319 

that  are  the  basis  of  the  recognition  ?  The  answer 
is:  Very  distinctly,  recognition  does  affect  the  im- 
pressions. The  activity  involved  in  jr^eognitiou  al- 
ters the  data  of  sense,  and  that  in  almost  every  case. 
Two  of  the  ways  in  which  this  alteration  occurs 
are  these:  Cl^L In  recognizing,  we  complete  present 
data  by  remembered  past  data,  and  so  seem  to  expe- 
rience more  than  is  actually  given  to  our  senses. 
Thus,  then,  in  reading,  we  read  over  misprints  (even 
against  our  own  will),  thinking  that  we  see  words 
when  we  do  not  see  them,  or  when  we  see  only  parts 
of  them.  Again :  in  listening  to  an  indistinct 
speaker  we  often  supply  what  is  lacking  in  the  sounds 
he  makes,  and  seem  to  hear  whole  words  when  we 
really  hear  but  fragments  of  words.  Or,  merely 
whistling  a  few  notes,  we  recall  to  ourselves,  and 
seem  to  have  present,  the  complex  instrumental  har- 
mony of  some  music  that  we  have  heard  played. 
Or,  in  dim  twilight,  we  imagine  the  form  of  a  man, 
and  seem  to  see  ifc  plainly  in  detail,  when,  in  fact,  a 
mass  of  shrubbery,  or  a  coat  on  a  chair,  is  the  one 
source  of  our  impressions.  In  all  these  cases,  the 
activity  of  recognition  alters  the  data  of  sense,  by 
adding  to  them,  by  filling  out  the  sketch  made  by 
them.  (2.)  However,  even  the  qualities  of  sense-im- 
pressions are  altered  according  to  the  way  in  which 
we  recognize  their  objects.  The  colors  of  a  landscape 
are  dimmer,  and  less  significant  as  colors,  so  long 
as  we  recognize  the  objects  in  the  landscape.  Look 
under  your  arm,  with  head  inverted,  and  the  colors 
flash  out  with  unwonted  brilliancy.  For  when  you 
so  look,  you  lose  sight  of  the  objects  as  such,  and 


320         THE  RELIGIOUS  ASPECT   OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

give  your  attention  solely  to  the  colors.  Mistake  a 
few  brown  leaves  in  some  dark  corner  of  a  garden 
for  some  little  animal,  and  the  leaves  take  on  for  the 
moment  the  distinctive  familiar  color  of  the  animal ; 
and  when  you  discover  your  blunder,  you  can  catch 
the  colors  in  the  very  act  of  fading  into  their  dull, 
dry-leaf  insignificance.  Many  facts  of  this  sort  are 
recorded  by  psychologists  and  by  artists,  and  can  be 
observed  by  any  of  us  if  we  choose.  To  separate  a 
sensation  from  its  modifications  that  are  produced 
by  recognition  is  not  a  little  difficult. 

Now,  in  both  these  kinds  of  alteration  a  law  is 
observed,  very  similar  to  the  one  previously  noted. 
The  alterations  of  the  data  of  sense  in  the  moment  of 
recognition  are  alterations  in  the  direction  of  simplic- 
ity and  definiteness  of  consciousness.  The  present 
is  assimilated  to  the  past ;  the  new  is  made  to  seem 
as  familiar  as  possible.  This  reaction  of  the  mind 
upon  new  impressions  is  easily  seen  in  our  thoughts 
and  words  in  the  first  moment  of  great  surprise  or 
fright.  When  Macbeth  turns  from  his  door  to  the 
table,  and  sees  the  ghost  of  Banquo  in  his  chair,  his 
first  words  are  not  the  "  Avaunt,  and  quit  my 
sight !  "  wherewith  he  greets  the  second  appearance 
of  the  ghost,  nor  yet  even  the  "  Which  of  you  have 
done  this  f "  that  he  utters  as  soon  as  he  recovers 
himself.  No :  his  first  conscious  reaction,  in  pres- 
ence of  the  horrible  impression,  is  a  quiet  remark, 
"  The  table  '«  full."  And  when  they  teU  him  that 
there  is  a  place  reserved,  he  persists  with  a 
"  Where  ?  "  In  this  scene,  Shakespeare's  instinct 
is  perfectly  accurate.  Our  effort  always  is  to  make 


THE  WORLD   OF   THE  POSTULATES.  321 

the  new  as  familiar  as  possible,  even  when  this  new 
is  inconceivably  strange.  It  takes  us  some  time  to 
realize,  as  we  say,  a  great  change  of  any  sort.  Rec- 
ognition, however,  is  yet  further  modified  by  the  in- 
terest with  which  we  at  any  moment  attend  to  things. 
But  when  we  speak  of  interest,  we  are  led  to  the 
third  kind  of  active  modification  by  which  our  minds 
determine  for  us  what  we  know. 

At  every  moment  we  are  not  merely  receiving,  at- 
tending, and  recognizing,  but  we  are  constructing. 
Out  of  what  from  moment  to  moment  comes  to  us, 
we  are  building  up  our  ideas  of  past  and  future,  and 
of  the  world  of  reality.  Mere  dead  impressions  are 
given.  We  turn  them  by  our  own  act  into  symbols 
of  a  real  universe.  We  thus  constantly  react  upon 
what  is  given;  and  not  only  modify  it,  but  even  give 
it  whatever  significance  it  comes  to  possess.  Now 
this  reaction  takes  a  multitude  of  forms,  and  cannot 
be  fully  discussed  without  far  more  than  our  present 
space.  But  we  can  name  one  or  two  prominent 
modes  of  reaction  of  mind  upon  sense-data  in  this 
province  of  mental  life. 

1.  Definite  memory  is  possible  only  through  pres- 
ent active  construction    from  the  data  of   feeling. 
Nothing  can  come  to  us  certifying  for  itself  that  it 
formed  a  part  of  our  previous    experience.     When 
we  know  a  thing  as  past,  we  actively  project  our 
idea  of  it  into  a  conceived  past  time.     Without  this 
active  interference   of  our    own  minds,  everything 
would  be  but  a  present,  and  there  would  be  no  time 
for  us,  only  fleeting  life  from  moment  to  moment. 

2.  Definite  belief  in  external  reality  is  possible 

21 


322         THE   RELIGIOUS   ASPECT   OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

only  through  this  active  addition  of  something  of 
our  own  to  the  impressions  that  are  actually  given 
to  us.  No  external  reality  is  given  to  us  in  the  mere 
sense-impressions.  What  is  outside  of  us  cannot  be 
at  the  same  time  within  us.  But  out  of  what  is  in 
us,  we  construct  an  idea  of  an  external  world.  To 
be  sure  this  belief  needs  higher  justification,  like  all 
other  beliefs.  But  at  the  outset  it  is  just  an  activ- 
ity of  ours. 

3.  All  abstract  ideas,  all  general  truths,  all  knowl- 
edge of  necessary  laws,  all  acceptance  of  doctrines, 
begin  in  like  fashion,  through  an  active  process  com- 
ing from  within.     Change  the  fashions  of  our  men- 
tal activity,  and  nobody  can  tell  how  radically  you 
would  change  our  whole  conception  of  the  universe. 

4.  All  this  active  construction  from  sense-impres- 
sions expresses  certain  fundamental   interests  that 
our  human  spirit  takes  in  reality.    We  want  to  have 
a  world  of   a   particular  character ;  and    so,   from 
sense-impressions,  we  are  constantly  trying  to  build 
up  such  a  world.     We  are  prejudiced  in  favor  of 
regularity,  necessity,  and   simplicity  in  the   world ; 
and  so  we  continually  manipulate   the  data  of  sense 
for  the  sake  of  building  up  a  notion  of  a  regular, 
necessary,  and  simple  universe.     And  so,  though  it 
is  true  that  our  knowledge  of  the  world  is  deter- 
mined by  what  is  given  to  our  senses,  it  is  equally 
true  that  our  idea  of  the  world  is  determined  quite 
as  much  by  our  own  active  combination,  completion, 
anticipation  of  sense  experience.     Thus  all^  knowing 
is,  in  a  very  deep  sense,  Jjcting  ;  it  is,  in  fact,  react- 
ing and  creation.     The  most  insignificant  knowledge 


THE  WORLD   OF   THE  POSTULATES.  323 

is  in  some  sense  an  original  product  of  the  man  who 
knows.  In  it  is  expressed  his  disposition,  his  power 
of  attention,  his  skill  in  recognition,  his  interest  in 
reality,  his  creative  might.  Exact  knowledge  is,  in 
fact,  best  illustrated  by  cases  where  we  ourselves 
make  what  we  know.  So  only  is  mathematical 
knowledge  possible ;  mathematical  ideas  are  all  prod- 
ucts of  a  constructive  imagination.  And  so  it  is  in 
all  other  thought-life.  Mentally  produce,  and  thou 
shalt  know  thy  product.  But  we  must  remember, 
for  what  we  produce  we  are  in  some  sense  morally 
responsible;  and  thus,  in  discussing  the  nature  of 
knowledge,  we  are  trespassing  on  the  border-land  of 
ethics. 

To  sum  up  all  in  a  few  words :  Plainly,  since  ac- 
tive inner  processes  are  forever  modifying  and  build- 
ing our  ideas  ;  since  our  interest  in  what  we  wish  to 
find  does  so  much  to  determine  what  we  do  find ; 
since  we  could  not  if  we  would  reduce  ourselves  to 
mere  registering  machines,  but  remain  always  build- 
ers of  our  own  little  worlds,  —  it  becomes  us  to  con- 
sider well,  and  to  choose  the  spirit  in  which  we  shall 
examine  our  experience.  Every  one  is  certain  to  be 
prejudiced,  simply  because  he  does  not  merely  re- 
ceive experience,  but  himself  acts,  himself  makes  ex- 
perience. One  great  question  for  every  truth-seeker 
is :  In  what  sense,  to  what  degree,  with  what  motive, 
for  what  end,  may  I  and  should  I  be  prejudiced? 
Most  of  us  get  our  prejudices  wholly  from  the  fash- 
ions of  other  men.  This  is  cowardly.  We  are  re- 
sponsible for  our  own  creed,  and  must  make  it  by 
our  own  hard  work.  Therefore,  the  deepest  and 


324        THE  RELIGIOUS   ASPECT   OF   PHILOSOPHY. 

most  important  of  all  questions  is  the  one,  "  For 

I  what  art  thou  at  work?"    It  is  useless  to  reply,  "  I 

I  am  merely  noting  down  what  I  find  in  the  world. 

\  I  am  not  responsible  for  the  facts"    The  answer  is, 

"  A  mere  note-book  thou  art  not,  but  a  man.    These 

are   never   simply  notes;  thy  thoughts   are   always 

transformed  reality,  never  mere  copies  of  reality. 

For  thy  transforming  activity,  as  well  as  for  thy 

skill  in  copying,  thou  art  answerable." 


V. 

It  is  not  then  that  postulates  occur  here  and 
there  in  our  thoughts,  but  that,  without  postulates, 
both  practical  life  and  the  commonest  results  of  the- 
ory, from  the  simplest  impressions  to  the  most  valu- 
able beliefs,  would  be  for  most  if  not  all  of  us  ut- 
terly impossible  ;  this  it  is  which  makes  active  faith 
so  prominent  a  subject  for  philosophical  considera- 
tion. An  imperfect  reflection  makes  that  appear  as 
blind  faith  which  ought  to  appear  as  postulate.  In- 
stead of  saying  that  he  takes  all  these  things  on 
risk,  and  because  they  are  worth  the  risk,  the  natu- 
ral man  is  persuaded  by  such  imperfect  reflection  to 
say  that  he  trusts  very  ardently  that  he  is  running 
no  risk  at  all.  Or  again :  the  natural  man  is  moved 
to  fear  any  examination  into  the  bases  of  his  thought, 
because  he  does  not  wish  to  discover  that  there  is 
any  risk  there.  And  so  we  live  dishonestly  with 
our  thoughts.  Where  there  is  a  deeper  basis,  that 
involves  more  than  mere  risk,  let  us  find  it  if  we  can. 
But  where  we  have  nothing  better  than  active  faith, 


THE  WORLD   OF   THE  POSTULATES.  325 

let  us  discover  the  fact,  and  see  clearly  just  why  it 
is  worth  while  to  act  in  this  way. 

To  speak  more  particularly  of  the  postulates  of 
developed  science.  The  ancient  discussions  about 
the  basis  of  physical  knowledge  of  all  sorts  have 
had  at  least  this  as  outcome,  that  it  is  useless  to  pre- 
tend to  make  science  of  any  sort  do  without  assump- 
tions, and  equally  useless  to  undertake  the  demon- 
stration of  these  assumptions  by  experience  alone. 
No  one  has  ever  succeeded  in  accomplishing  such  a 
thing,  and  the  only  difference  among  thinkers  about 
these  assumptions  is  that  some  think  it  worth  while 
to  seek  a  transcendental  basis  for  them  all,  while 
others  insist  that  a  transcendental  basis  is  as  impos- 
sible as  a  purely  experimental  basis  is  inadequate, 
and  that  in  consequence  we  can  only  use  the  form  of 
threat  and  say :  Unless  you  make  these  assumptions, 
the  spirit  of  science  is  not  in  you.  As  for  the  exact 
form  that  in  more  elaborate  scientific  work  ought 
to  be  taken  by  these  postulates,  opinion  differs  very 
much,  but  an  approximation  to  their  sense  may  be 
attempted  very  briefly  as  follows. 

In  addition  to  those  postulates  that,  as  we  have 
seen,  accompany  and  condition  all  thinking  alike, 
science  may  be  considered  as  making  a  more  special 
assumption.  This  assumption  has  been  well  defined 
by  Professor  Avenarius,  in  his  well-known  essay  on 
"  Die  Philosophic  als  Denken  der  Welt  Gemass  dem 
Princip  des  kleinsten  Kraftmasses."  He  regards  it 
as  an  outcome  of  the  general  law  of  parsimony  that 
governs  all  mental  work.  The  world  of  phenomena 
is  conceived  at  any  stage  in  the  simplest  form,  and 


326         THE   RELIGIOUS   ASPECT    OF   PHILOSOPHY. 

the  reality  that  we  accept  is  for  us  at  any  time  the 
simplest  description  of  the  phenomena  as  known  to 
us.  To  put  this  view  in  our  own  way,  we  might 
say  that  the  world  is  scientifically  viewed  as  a  per- 
fectly united  whole,  which  would,  if  fully  known, 
fully  satisfy  our  highest  mental  desire  for  continuity 
and  perfect  regularity  of  conception.  Therefore  it 
is  that  the  "universal  formula  "  of  the  last  chapter 
is  a  conception  that  expresses  the  scientific  ideal. 
With  less  perfection,  harmony,  and  unity  of  thought 
about  the  world,  science  will  never  rest  content  so 
long  as  she  continues  to  be  science.  But  for  this 
very  reason  science  postulates  that  this  perfect  order 
must  be  already  realized  in  the  world.  It  is  not 
merely  that  this  order  is  the  practically  unattainable 
but  still  necessary  ideal  for  our  reason ;  but  we 
must  postulate  that  this  order  is  already  present  in 
things,  far  off  as  our  thought  is  from  it.  This  pos- 
tulate gives  life  to  our  scientific  thought.  Without 
it  our  search  for  an  order  that  need  not  exist  is 
meaningless  play. 

This  postulated  order,  however,  if  found,  would 
mean  for  us  relative  simplicity  and  economy  of  con- 
ception. The  infinite  mass  of  phenomena  would  be 
conceived  as  one  whole.  The  maximum  of  wealth 
of  facts  would  be  grasped  with  the  minimum  of  men- 
tal effort.  We  postulate  after  this  fashion  that  the 
world  loves  parsimony,  even  as  we  do. 

To  illustrate  by  the  case  of  one  science.  A  great 
master  of  mechanical  science  has  called  it  the  science 
which  gives  the  simplest  possible  description  of  the 
motions  in  the  world.  If  we  accept  this  account  of 


THE   WORLD    OF   THE   POSTULATES.  327 

mechanics,  we  are  at  once  puzzled  by  the  fact  that 
most  mechanical  theories  make  assumptions  about 
the  forces  at  work  in  the  world,  and  that  all  of  them 
predict  coming  facts.  But  forces  form  no  part  of 
the  experience  or  of -the  mere  description  of  motion. 
And  the  future  is  not  yet  given  to  be  described. 
How  then  does  all  this  agree  with  the  definition  in 
question?  Very  well  indeed.  For  those  who  as- 
sume forces  to  explain  given  motions,  always  assume 
just  those  forces  that  will  directly  explain,  not  any 
description  at  random  of  the  motions  given  in  expe- 
rience, but  the  simplest  possible  description.  Any 
motion  being  relative,  never  for  our  experience  abso- 
lute, we  can  assume  at  pleasure  any  point  in  the 
world  as  the  origin  or  point  of  reference  that  shall 
be  regarded  as  at  rest,  and  so  we  can  get  an  infinite 
number  of  descriptions  of  any  given  motions.  We 
can  make  any  object  in  the  world  move  at  any  de- 
sired speed  or  in  any  desired  direction,  simply  by 
altering  the  origin  to  which  we  shall  choose  to  refer 
its  motion  in  our  description  thereof.  But  all  these 
possible  descriptions  are  not  equally  useful  for  the 
purposes  of  the  science.  Some  one  of  them  is  the 
simplest  for  all  the  motions  of  the  system  in  ques- 
tion ;  and  this  we  regard  as  best  expressing  the  ac- 
tual natural  truth  in  the  matter.  The  assumption 
of  just  such  forces  as  would  explain  this  simplest 
system  of  motions  as  described,  satisfies  us.  We 
say,  these  forces  are  the  real  ones  at  work.  But 
still  we  know  that  the  forces  assumed  only  express 
in  another  form  the  fact  that  the  description  in  ques- 
tion is  the  simplest.  Is  this,  however,  really  all  that 


328         THE   RELIGIOUS   ASPECT    OF   PHILOSOPHY. 

the  science  does  with  the  given  motions  ?  No,  one 
thing  more  the  science  assumes,  namely,  that  if  the 
system  of  motions  in  question  is  not  subject  to  any 
external  influence,  it  will  remain  fundamentally  and 
in  deepest  truth  the  same  in  future,  that  is :  The 
simplest  description  of  the  given  motions  in  a  sys- 
tem of  bodies  that  is  wholly  independent  of  the  ac- 
tion of  bodies  without  the  system,  this  description 
is  permanent  for  all  states  of  the  system.  This 
assumption  is  needed  before  mechanical  science  can 
venture  on  any  prediction,  or  beyond  mere  descrip- 
tion of  past  and  present  motions.  This  is  the  pos- 
tulate of  the  uniformity  of  nature  in  its  mechanical 
shape.1  The  complete  present  description  of  the 
world  would  reveal  the  whole  future  of  the  world. 

What,  however,  does  this  postulate  of  uniformity 
express  for  our  thought?  What  is  the  philosoph- 
ical outcome  of  it  ?  It  expresses  for  our  thought  the 
demand  that  nature  shall  answer  our  highest  intel- 
lectual needs,  namely,  the  need  for  simplicity  and 
absolute  unity  of  conception.  Mechanical  science 
can  no  more  do  without  this  assumption  than  can 
any  other  science. 

The  ground  that  we  have  here  very  briefly  passed 
over  is  known  to  all  readers  of  modern  controversy. 
We  can  only  add  our  conviction  that,  as  far  as  it 
goes,  the  foregoing  view  is  a  perfectly  fair  one. 
Whether  or  no  there  be  any  deeper  basis  for  this 

1  Professor  Clifford,  in  his  essay  on  Theories  of  the  Physical 
Forces,  in  his  Lectures  and  Essays,  vol.  i.,  p.  109  sqq.,  has  under- 
taken to  reduce  this  postulate  to  the  general  one  of  Continuity. 
The  philosophical  outcome  would  be  the  same. 


THE   WORLD   OF   THE   POSTULATES.  329 

postulate,  it  is  sure  that  science  makes  the  postulate, 
and  does  not  give  any  deeper  basis  for  it.  For  nat- 
ural science  it  is  a  faith. 

Now  this  faith,  not  blind  faith  but  postulate,  not 
basely  submitted  to  merely  because  we  must  submit 
to  it,  but  boldly  assumed  because  we  think  it  worth 
the  risk,  wherein  does  it  differ  from  what  our  funda- 
mental religious  faith  would  be  if  we  made  of  that 
also  no  mere  dogmatic  creed,  but  a  general  assump- 
tion, no  mere  passive  trust,  but  an  active  postulate  ? 
Beneath  all  the  beliefs  that  we  could  not  demon- 
strate in  our  last  chapter,  lay  the  determination  not 
so  much  to  prove  one  cast-iron  system  of  dogmas, 
as  to  find  some  element  of  reality  that  should  have 
an  infinite  worth.  The  world  should  be  at  least  as 
high  as  our  highest  conception  of  goodness.  And 
to  this  end  the  partial  evil  should  be  in  deepest 
reality  universal  good,  even  though  our  imperfect 
eyes  could  never  show  to  us  how  this  could  be,  — 
could  never  see  through  the  illusion  to  the  "  image- 
less  truth  "  beneath.  Therefore,  although  we  vainly 
sought  among  the  Powers  of  the  world  for  proof  of 
all  this,  may  we  not  still  hope  to  approach  the 
Eternal  Eeality  with  these  postulates,  and  to  say : 
"Though  thou  revealest  to  us  nothing,  yet  we  be- 
lieve thee  good.  And  we  do  so  because  this  faith  of 
ours  is  a  worthy  one."  Possibly  then  our  Religion 
will  be  just  the  highest  form  of  our  conduct  itself, 
our  determination  to  make  the  world  good  for  our- 
selves, whatever  baseness  experience  shows  us  in  it. 
Then  we  can  say  :  Just  as  science  is  undaunted  by 
the  vision  of  the  world  of  confusion,  so  shall  our  re- 


830         THE   RELIGIOUS   ASPECT   OF   PHILOSOPHY. 

ligious  faith  be  undaunted  by  the  vision  of  the  evil 
of  the  world.  We  shall  war  against  this  evil  in  the 
trust  that  the  highest  reality  is  not  against  us,  but 
with  us,  just  as  we  try  to  comprehend  the  world  with 
the  faith  that  the  highest  reality  is  in  conformity 
with  our  private  reason.  In  both  cases  we  take  the 
risk,  but  we  take  the  risk  because  it  is  worth  taking, 
because  to  take  it  is  the  highest  form  of  activity. 
As  the  faith  of  science  helps  to  make  life  rational, 
so  the  religious  faith  helps  to  make  life  in  the  high- 
est sense  moral,  by  insisting  that  the  ideal  labors  of 
our  moral  life  are  undertaken  not  alone,  but  in  har- 
mony with  the  world  as  known  to  the  Infinite. 

To  make  the  parallel  a  little  clearer,  we  may  say 
that  science  postulates  the  truth  of  the  description 
of  the  world  that,  among  all  the  possible  descrip- 
tions, at  once  includes  the  given  phenomena  and  at- 
tains the  greatest  simplicity ;  while  religion  assumes 
the  truth  of  the  description  of  the  world  that,  with- 
out falsifying  the  given  facts,  arouses  the  highest 
moral  interest  and  satisfies  the  highest  moral  needs. 

All  this  has  often  been  said,  but  it  has  not  always 
been  clearly  enough  joined  with  the  practical  sug- 
gestion that  if  one  gives  up  one  of  these  two  faiths, 
he  ought  consistently  to  give  up  tjie  other.  If  one 
is  weary  of  the  religious  postulates,  let  him  by  all 
means  throw  them  aside.  But  if  he  does  this,  why 
does  he  not  throw  aside  the  scientific  postulates,  and 
give  up  insisting  upon  it  that  the  world  is  and  must 
be  rational?  Yea,  let  him  be  thorough-going,  and, 
since  the  very  perception  of  the  walls  of  his  room 
contains  postulates,  let  him  throw  away  all  these 


THE   WORLD   OF   THE   POSTULATES.  331 

postulates  too,  and  dwell  in  the  chaos  of  sensations 
unfriended.  There  is  no  reason  why  he  should  not 
do  this  unless  he  sees  a  deeper  foundation  for  his 
postulates.  We  have  no  mere  dogmas  to  urge  here. 
Let  one  abandon  all  mere  postulates  if  he  has  not 
the  courage  to  make  them,  but  then  let  one  consist- 
ently give  them  all  up.  The  religious  postulates 
are  not  indeed  particular  creeds.  One  may  abandon 
creeds  of  many  sorts,  and  yet  keep  the  fundamental 
postulate.  But  if  he  abandons  the  fundamental  pos- 
tulate of  religion,  namely,  that  universal  goodness 
is  somehow  at  the  heart  of  things,  then  he  ought 
consistently  to  cease  from  the  fundamental  postu- 
late of  science,  namely,  that  universal,  order-loving 
reason  is  somehow  the  truth  of  things.  And  to  do 
both  is  to  lack  the  courage  of  rational  and  of  moral 
life. 

Such  is  the  way  of  the  postulates.  And  yet  we 
desire  to  find,  if  we  can,  a  more  excellent  way. 
These  postulates  must  be  confirmed  if  possible,  and 
then  subordinated  to  higher  results.  It  was  the 
skeptical  work  of  the  last  chapter  to  turn  attention 
away  from  false  or  inconclusive  methods  of  estab- 
lishing religious  faith.  There  we  saw  how  much 
must  seem,  according  to  all  the  ordinary  apologetic 
methods,  theoretically  doubtful.  In  this  chapter  we 
have  seen  how  postulates,  theoretically  uncertain, 
but  practically  worth  the  risk,  are  at  the  foundation 
of  our  whole  lives.  Hereafter  we  shall  seek  to  dig 
beneath  these  foundations  to  that  other  sort  of  theo- 
retical certainty  whereof  we  have  made  mention.  If 
we  get  it,  then  all  our  work  will  have  been  worth 


332         THE   RELIGIOUS   ASPECT    OF   PHILOSOPHY. 

while.  Our  skepticism  will  have  saved  us  from  an- 
tiquated methods,  and  from  worn-out  dogmas.  Our 
faith  will  have  been  purified  by  being  reduced  to 
certain  simple  postulates  that  are  not  identical  with 
the  traditional  creeds,  although  those  creeds  tried  to 
express  them.  And  both  our  skepticism  and  our 
faith  will  then  finally  become  elements  of  a  broader 
Keligious  Insight. 

The  dead  external  reality,  into  whose  darkness  we 
had  to  peer  in  vain  for  light,  has  indeed  transformed 
itself.  It  is  no  more  merely  dead,  or  merely  exter- 
nal. It  is  ours  and  for  us.  It  was  a  world  of  doubt 
in  the  last  chapter,  just  because  we  made  it  dead 
and  external.  Now  that  we  have  seen  how  it  was 
the  expression  of  postulates,  it  seems  to  have  become 
plastic  and  ideal.  Yet  what  it  has  gained  in  plas- 
ticity, it  has  lost  in  authority.  After  all,  is  not  this 
business  of  postulating  into  the  void  a  dangerous 
one  ?  Is  it  not  a  hollow  and  empty  activity  this,  if 
we  really  reflect  upon  it  ?  Courage  indeed  we  must 
have  ;  but  is  religion  no  more  than  courage  ?  Nay  ; 
we  must  have  if  possible  some  eternal  Truth,  that 
is  not  our  postulate,  to  rest  upon.  Can  we  not  get 
some  such  comfort  ?  And  may  there  not  be  some 
higher  relation  of  our  lives  to  that  truth,  —  such  a 
relation  that  the  truth  shall  be  neither  the  arbitrary 
product  of  our  subjective  postulates,  nor  a  dead  ex- 
ternal reality  such  as  was  the  world  of  doubt  ?  We 
are  bound  still  to  search. 


CHAPTER  X. 

IDEALISM. 

Ei?  TOV  oAov  ovpavbv  a7ro/?Ae^as  TO  ev  eu/ai  $rj(Ti  rov  Oeov* 

ARISTOTLE,  concerning  the  doctrine  of  Xenophanes. 

STILL  we  are  seeking  the  Eternal.  Postulates 
about  it  we  must  indeed  make,  or  else  we  shall  do 
nothing.  But  can  we  not  go  beyond  the  mere  postu- 
lates ?  Is  there  no  other  road  open  to  the  heart  of 
things  ?  In  fact  many  other  ways  have  been  sug- 
gested. The  religiously  interesting  efforts  towards 
a  suggestion  of  such  ways  have  been  the  special  work 
of  philosophical  Idealism  in  the  past.  Let  us  then 
see  to  what  results  philosophical  Idealism  offers  to 
lead  us. 

I. 

"The  world  of  dead  facts  is  an  illusion.  The 
truth  of  it  is  a  spiritual  life."  That  is  what  philo- 
sophical idealism  says.  This  spiritual  life  may  be 
defined  in  many  ways.  But  the  multitude  of  the 
ways  of  defining  it  do  not  altogether  obscure  the 
sense  of  the  doctrine.  Plato  and  St.  Augustine  and 
Berkeley  and  Fichte  and  Hegel  give  us  very  various 
accounts  of  the  spiritual  life  that  is  to  be  at  the 
heart  of  things,  but  they  agree  about  the  general 
thought.  As  to  the  proof  of  the  doctrine,  very  many 


334         THE   RELIGIOUS   ASPECT   OF   PHILOSOPHY. 

writers  have  presented  this  idealism  as  a  sort  of  prod- 
uct of  poetical  fantasy,  and  have  thereby  helped  to 
bring  it  into  disrepute.  We  profess  no  such  enthu- 
siasm. If  we  are  to  give  any  foundation  for  our 
postulates  by  means  of  an  idealistic  doctrine,  then 
this  foundation  must  be  no  mere  poetic  fancy,  but  a 
well-framed  philosophic  doctrine,  able  to  stand  crit- 
icism, and  to  satisfy  very  unemotional  aims,  as  well 
as  the  higher  moral  aims  themselves.  But  if  ideal- 
ism is  to  receive  rigid  theoretical  tests,  we  may  still, 
in  view  of  our  present  discussion  and  its  needs,  be 
helped  on  our  way  more  directly  if  we  first  consider 
very  generally  and  briefly  what  idealism  could  do 
for  us  if  it  were  established,  thereafter  going  on  to 
the  theoretical  consideration  of  its  claims. 

That  the  Eternal  is  a  world  of  spiritual  life  is 
what  the  idealists  of  the  past  have  maintained,  and 
the  religious  force  of  their  doctrine  lay  not  so  much 
in  the  insight  that  was  thus  offered  concerning  the 
nature  of  the  powers  that  are  in  the  world,  as  in  an- 
other insight.  Just  here  idealistic  doctrine  and  its 
outcome  has  been  seldom  comprehended,  even  by 
the  idealists  themselves.  The  world,  merely  viewed 
as  a  heap  of  warring  Powers,  cannot  be  a  world  of 
spiritual  life.  If  the  real  world  is  nevertheless  a 
world  of  such  spiritual  life,  it  must  be  so  because, 
beyond  and  above  the  Powers,  there  is  this  higher 
spiritual  Life  that  includes  them  and  watches  over 
them  as  the  spectator  watches  the  tragedy,  —  a  Life 
in  which  they  live  and  move  and  have  their  being. 
The  characters  in  a  tragedy  do  not  constitute  as  war- 
ring powers,  in  their  separate  existence,  the  signifi- 


IDEALISM.  335 

cance  of  the  tragedy.  The  spectator,  the  overseeing 
thought,  for  which  and  in  which  these  fancied  pow- 
ers contend,  this  it  is  that  gives  them  unity  and  sig- 
nificance. Even  so  the  highest  spiritual  life  that  / 
the  idealist  finds  in  the  world  is  not  to  be  a  power 
among  other  powers,  but  a  thought  for  which  exists 
all  that  is.  Hence  the  deepest  assertion  of  idealism 
is  not  that  above  all  the  evil  powers  in  the  world 
there  is  at  work  some  good  power  mightier  than 
they,  but  rather  that  through  all  the  powers,  good 
and  evil,  and  in  them  all,  dwells  the  higher  spirit 
that  does  not  so  much  create  as  constitute  them  what 
they  are,  and  so  include  them  all. 

How  all  this  is  to  be  more  fully  explained,  and 
how  it  is  to  be  justified,  if  at  all,  by  idealism,  we 
shall  see  further  on.  But  for  the  present  we  may 
suggest  that  such  idealism  as  this  has  a  peculiar  ad- 
vantage in  dealing  with  the  problems  that  we  found 
insoluble  in  the  discussion  of  the  world  of  the  Powers. 
There  we  found  a  world  of  contending  elementary 
forces,  A,  B,  C,  etc.  As  contending  powers  they 
must  needs  appear  finite.  If  one  was  good,  another 
was  or  might  be  evil.  And  as  we  had  to  deal  only 
with  the  warring  elements,  the  thought  that  partial 
evil  may,  after  all,  be  universal  good  seemed  not 
very  plausible,  and  quite  indemonstrable.  The  world 
being  the  collection  of  the  powers  that  are  in  it,  the 
good  and  evil  of  the  whole  seemed  to  be  the  sum  of 
the  separate  good  and  evil  elements.  But  now  we 
have  a  thought  that  may  make  possible  the  existence 
of  universal  goodness.  If  the  tragedy  as  a  whole  is 
good,  although  its  elements  are  evil,  so  like  the  trag- 


336         THE   RELIGIOUS   ASPECT   OF   PHILOSOPHY. 

edy  may  the  world  be  universally  good  if  the  single 
evils  of  reality,  like  the  single  parts  of  the  tragedy, 
are  elements  in  a  whole  that  exists  for  an  all-see- 
ing, all-inclusive  Spirit,  in  whom  are  all  things,  and 
whose  nature  as  a  whole  is  good.  Thus,  then,  if  we 
cannot  yet  see  just  how  the  partial  evil  is  universal 
good  in  the  all-inclusive  mind,  we  can  already,  from 
the  outset  at  least,  fancy  that  it  may  so  be.  The  All- 
Enfolding  may  be  good  even  although  of  necessity 
there  are  elements  in  his  world  of  infinite  experience 
that,  separately  considered,  may  'be  evil.  So  ideal- 
ism offers  as  its  theodicy  not  that  the  world  contains 
a  surplus  of  good  powers,  or  that  the  creative  power, 
when  it  made  the  devilish  powers,  still  meant  well ; 
but  the  theodicy  of  idealism  suggests  a  way  in  which 
evil  may  be,  after  all,  a  partial  view  of  an  all-em- 
bracing goodness. 

Hence  the  importance,  for  our  present  discussion, 
of  an  effort  to  treat  calmly  and  critically  the  main 
doctrine  of  philosophic  idealism.  Here  at  least  is 
some  suggestion  of  a  chance  that  we  may,  in  time, 
come  to  rise  above  mere  postulates,  and  may  found 
a  positive  religious  theory.  For  the  postulates  are 
indeed,  in  themselves,  not  enough.  We  want,  if 
possible,  to  get  beyond  them,  though  we  are  ready  to 
accept  them  as  final  if  we  can  do  no  better.  Yet 
we  are  still  forced  to  begin  our  account  of  idealistic 
doctrine  with  nothing  better  than  postulates. 


IDEALISM.  337 

II. 

The  imperfectioD  of  the  author's  private  under- 
standing of  deeper  truth  has  forced  him  to  come  to 
idealism  in  the  first  instance  by  a  very  straight  and 
easy  path,  that  most  deeper  idealists  would  deride. 
After  he  had  by  that  road  reached  the  definite  con- 
ception of  one  form  of  idealism,  he  found  a  further 
thought  by  which  this  idealism  seemed  to  be  trans- 
formed into  a  doctrine  of  greater  philosophical  and 
religious  significance.  At  the  same  time,  the  proof 
of  the  doctrine  first  seemed  to  him  to  become  clear 
and  all-embracing.  Now  a  reader  cares  little  for 
the  contents  of  an  author's  note-book,  or  for  a  his- 
tory of  his  opinions ;  but  sometimes  the  exposition 
of  a  view  is  a  little  helped  by  presenting  it  in  suc- 
cessive parts  that  follow  in  their  order  somewhat 
the  line  of  the  author's  own  development.  Hence 
the  present  chapter  shall  suggest  philosophic  ideal- 
ism as  a  mere  hypothesis,  that  still  only  tries  to  ex- 
press our  fundamental  postulates.  Then  we  shall 
go  on  to  see  what  deeper  foundation  for  it  we  can 
find.  And  furthermore,  our  first  suggestion  of  ideal- 
ism shall  be  a  purely  theoretical  conception,  not 
assumed  to  satisfy  directly  an  ethical  postulate,  but 
merely  to  express  theoretical  postulates  about  the 
world.  Then  we  shall  be  able  to  see  what  religious 
doctrine  can  be  built  upon  this  foundation.  This 
way  commends  itself  as  avoiding  the  greatest  dan- 
ger of  idealism,  namely,  fantastic  speculation  with 
noble  purposes,  but  with  merely  poetical  methods. 
Our  present  method  shall  be  coldly  theoretical,  how- 
22 


338         THE   RELIGIOUS   ASPECT    OF   PHILOSOPHY. 

ever  deeply  our  religious  philosophy  is  concerned  in 
the  outcome. 

For  the  first  then  we  shall  suppose  our  whole  task 
to  be  the  suggestion  of  a  plausible,  i.  e.  of  a  simple, 
adequate,  and  consistent  hypothesis  about  the  nature 
of  external  reality.  Hereafter  we  shall  consider 
more  critically  the  foundation  of  such  hypotheses. 
Provisionally,  then,  we  shall  suppose  that,  by  a  per- 
fect theory  of  knowledge,  the  following  result  has 
been  reached  :  Human  beings  are  able  to  form  ideas 
that  correspond  in  some  way  with  a  real  world,  out- 
side of  themselves.  That  is,  the  sequence  of  human 
ideas  corresponds  to  sequences  of  external  events,  or 
to  relations  of  coexistence  among  external  things. 
The  necessary  or  uniform  connections  of  human 
ideas  correspond  to  regular  or  to  universal  connec- 
tions among  external  things.  Or,  in  the  brief  form 
of  Mr.  Herbert  Spencer's  phraseology,  to  each  nec- 
essary relation  a  :  b  in  human  consciousness  there 
corresponds  a  relation  A  :  B  in  the  external  world. 
Suppose,  then,  that  all  this  has  been  established.  No 
one  will  admit  more  readily  than  the  writer  that  this 
supposition  is  at  this  point  merely  tentative.  Our 
theory  of  knowledge  is  yet  to  be  completed,  and  be- 
tween its  conception  and  its  realization  there  are  still 
wide  oceans  of  doubt.  We  shall,  in  fact,  deal  with 
the  problems  of  this  theory  in  the  next  chapter.  But 
for  the  moment  suppose  admitted  what  scientific 
thought  generally  takes  for  granted,  namely,  the  cor- 
respondence of  inner  and  outer  relations  in  such 
wise  that  the  former  are  naturally  copies  of  the  lat- 
ter. And,  on  this  foundation,  suppose  that  we  in- 


IDEALISM.  339 

tend  to  consider  what  hypothesis  as  to  the  nature  of 
the  related  terms  A  and  B  in  the  external  world  is, 
on  the  whole,  the  most  plausible. 

For  the  sake  of  avoiding  controversy  we  may  for 
the  moment  leave  out  of  account  two  old  questions. 
We  cannot  really  escape  either,  and  both  will  sternly 
confront  us  before  we  get  in  at  the  door  of  the  tem- 
ple of  certainty.  But  here  at  the  outset  we  are 
playing  with  hypotheses,  and  may  be  absolved  from 
the  responsibility  of  securing  ourselves  beforehand 
from  all  possible  attacks.  The  first  is  the  question 
of  the  idealists :  How  can  any  reality  be  conceived 
unless  as  implying  or  including  states  of  conscious- 
ness ?  For  the  moment  we  will  waive  this  part  of 
the  Berkeleyan  contention  altogether ;  for  we  are  not 
yet  concerned  to  prove  by  metaphysical  analysis  the 
universal  coincidence  of  consciousness  and  reality. 
We  wish  merely  a  plausible  hypothesis  to  be  ad- 
vanced as  to  the  nature  of  what  more  popular  thought 
means  by  reality.  The  second  question  that  at  the 
outset  we  avoid  is  the  one  concerning  tne  ground 
of  the  assumed  agreement  between  the  external  and 
the  internal  orders  of  facts.  Whether  this  ground 
lies  in  a  causal  determination  of  our  consciousness  by 
the  external  world,  or  in  a  preestablished  harmony 
of  both,  matters  not.  We  first  take  our  stand,  then, 
upon  the  facts  admitted  by  popular  belief.  Here  are 
feelings,  sequences  of  feelings,  thoughts,  trains  of 
thought,  systems  of  scientific  belief :  all  internal 
facts.  Beyond  the  consciousness  of  these  internal 
facts  stretches  (so  we  now  assume,  and  only  assume) 
another  world  of  facts,  in  which  something  corre- 


840         THE   RELIGIOUS   ASPECT    OF   PHILOSOPHY. 

sponds  to  each  one  of  these  feelings,  some  order  of 
facts  to  each  sequence  of  feeling,  some  system  of 
facts  and  of  laws  to  each  properly  constituted  system 
of  beliefs.  The  external  order  of  the  world  beyond 
corresponds  to  the  order  of  this  internal  world  of 
our  consciousness,  but  is  not  this  order.  A  plausi- 
ble hypothesis  is  required  as  to  the  nature  of  this 
corresponding  external  order. 

Let  us  examine  Berkeley's  familiar  hypothesis, 
which,  as  a  mere  hypothesis,  we  can  examine  apart 
from  any  study  of  Berkeley's  philosophical  argu- 
ments for  his  idealism.  According  to  Berkeley  there 
exist  conscious  beings,  more  or  less  like  ourselves,  of 
whom  the  head  and  father  is  God.  Now  external  to 
all  beings  besides  God  there  is  a  real  world.  This 
real  world  is  made  up  of  the  eternal  system  of  God's 
thoughts. 

"  When  I  deny  sensible  things  an  existence  out  of  the 
mind,  I  do  not  mean  my  mind  in  particular,  but  all  minds. 
Now  it  is  -plain  they  have  an  existence  exterior  to  my 
mind,  since  I  find  them  by  experience  to  be  independent 
of  it.  There  is  some  other  mind  wherein  they  exist,  dur- 
ing the  intervals  between  the  times  of  my  perceiving 
them ;  as  likewise  they  did  before  my  birth,  and  would 
do  after  my  supposed  annihilation.  And  as  the  same  is 
true  with  regard  to  all  other  finite  created  spirits,  it  nec- 
essarily foUows,  there  is  an  Omnipresent  Eternal  Mind, 
which  knows  and  comprehends  all  things,  and  exhibits 
them  to  our  view  in  such  a  manner,  and  according  to  such 
rules  as  he  himself  hath  ordained,  and  are  by  us  termed 
the  laws  of  nature."  l 

1  Dialogues  between  Hylas  and  Philonous,  III. 


IDEALISM.  341 

This  so  familiar  hypothesis  of  Berkeley  is  in  part 
founded  upon  a  thought  that  for  the  present  we  have 
agreed  to  neglect,  i.  e.  upon  the  notion  of  the  exter- 
nal world  as  the  cause  of  our  internal  impressions. 
Not  being  caused  by  myself,  my  ideas,  reasons  Berke- 
ley, must  have  an  external  cause.  And  the  only 
intelligible  cause  is  an  active  spirit.  Yet  for  our 
present  purpose  this  thought  is  not  important.  We 
are  not  asking  about  the  cause  of  our  conscious 
states,  but  about  the  way  in  which  we  can  most  plau- 
sibly conceive  of  an  external  world  corresponding  to 
these  states.  The  correspondence  is  assumed.  Into 
its  ground,  be  it  preestablished  harmony  or  physical 
influence,  we  do  not  just  now  inquire.  Our  only 
criteria  of  plausibility,  if  causal  explanation  is 
dropped,  are  therefore  adequacy,  simplicity,  and  con- 
sistency. Is  Berkeley's  hypothesis  consistent  with 
itself,  and  is  it  the  simplest  hypothesis  possible? 
Stripped  of  non-essential  features,  the  hypothesis  is 
that  there  corresponds  to  our  consciousness  another 
higher  and  farther-reaching  consciousness,  containing 
all  that  is  abiding  in  our  consciousness,  and  much 
more  besides.  This  consciousness  is  in  form  and 
matter  a  rational  spirit,  having  definite  purposes  in 
the  creation  and  education  of  the  various  finite  spir- 
its. These  purposes  require  for  their  accomplishment 
that  our  conscious  states  should  within  certain  limits 
agree  with  this  higher  consciousness,  —  should  corre- 
spond to  it  in  form  and  to  a  certain  extent.  This  corre- 
spondence constitutes  what  we  mean  by  truth.  'There 
is  no  external  world  but  this  other  consciousness. 

To  Berkeley,  as  we  know,  the  essential  part  of 


342         THE  RELIGIOUS   ASPECT    OF   PHILOSOPHY. 

this  doctrine  was  the  teleological  part.  That  God's 
thoughts  and  our  correspondence  thereto  result  from 
and  express  God's  purposes  in  creating  the  world, 
this  was  for  Berkeley  the  main  point  to  be  proven. 
But  if  the  teleological  element  of  the  doctrine  be  for 
this  first  left  out  of  account,  there  is  another  part 
that  we  just  now  wish  to  hold  fast.  Our  thought\ 
is  true  by  reason  of  its  correspondence  to  the  facts\ 
of  an  actual  consciousness ,  external  to  our  own  :\ 
this  hypothesis  has  an  interest  apart  from  its  origin 
and  from  its  original  use.  Why  in  philosophy  should 
we  be  afraid  of  doctrines  because  they  have  an  as- 
sociation with  some  dreaded  theological  dogma,  or 
with  some  enthusiastic  and  over-confident  system  of 
the  past  ?  About  the  nature  of  the  external  world 
we  have  at  the  outset  nothing  but  hypotheses.  Be- 
fore we  test  them  in  any  very  exact  way,  we  may 
with  safety  try  to  understand  them.  Perhaps  what 
seemed  the  wildest  of  them  all  may  turn  out  to  be 
the  very  best.  Because  a  certain  hypothesis  was 
put  forward  rather  as  a  demonstrable  and  eternal 
truth  than  as  a  hypothesis,  shall  we  reject  it  without 
further  examination  ?  Perhaps  it  may  in  fact  turn 
out  to  be  part  of  the  eternal  truth. 

The  hypothesis  now  before  us  is  Berkeley's  with 
the  teleological  element  omitted,  along  with  the 
causal.  How  this  external  consciousness  comes  to 
affect  us,  and  why  it  takes  just  such  forms  as  it  does, 
we  say  not.  This  we  ask :  What  is  this  supposed 
external  consciousness  ?  How  does  it  correspond  to 
our  own  ?  We  shall  not  call  the  supposed  conscious- 
ness by  question-begging  names.  It  is  not  for  us 


IDEALISM.  343 

just  now  either  absolute  or  divine.  It  is  simply  con- 
sciousness, and  external.  The  hypothesis  is  that 
truth  consists  in  some  kind  of  correspondence  be- 
tween our  thought  and  this  outer  reality.  What 
kind  of  correspondence  ? 

Two  conscious  beings  can  have  corresponding 
states  of  consciousness,  without  having  like  states. 
The  notes  of  a  melody  could  have  corresponding  to 
them  the  variations  in  intensity  of  some  source  of 
light.  The  light-flashes  or  beats  would  correspond 
to  the  notes  of  music  by  having  the  like  rhythm  ; 
yet  there  would  be  no  resemblance  in  the  content. 
Correspondence  may  be  yet  more  obscured.  The 
dashes  on  a  piece  of  paper  that  has  passed  under  the 
point  of  a  telegraphic  pen,  the  series  of  characters 
printed  from  the  press  in  a  dozen  languages,  the 
sounds  of  the  voice  of  a  reader,  the  series  of  signals 
flashed  from  shore  to  a  distant  vessel,  all  these  dis- 
similar series  of  events  might  correspond  exactly  and 
throughout,  if  it  were  their  purpose  to  convey  in  va- 
rious ways  the  same  meaning.  In  order,  then,  that 
my  consciousness  should  correspond  to  some  other 
consciousness,  external  to  mine,  it  is  only  necessary 
that  for  each  event  or  fact  in  my  consciousness  there 
should  exist  some  event  or  fact  in  the  other  con- 
sciousness, and  that  some  relation  existing  among 
my  conscious  states  should  be  like  or  parallel  to  the 
relation  existing  among  the  conscious  states  external 
to  mine.  The  more  numerous  the  points  of  resem- 
blance between  the  two  series  of  states,  the  closer 
the  correspondence.  But  correspondence  in  the  ab- 
stract implies  only  some  one  definite  and  permanent 
resemblance  found  throughout  the  two  series. 


344         THE   RELIGIOUS   ASPECT    OF   PHILOSOPHY. 

Such  being  the  nature  of  correspondence  in  gen- 
eral, let  us  consider  our  hypothesis  more  in  detail. 
Suppose  the  clock  yonder  has  some  such  reality  as 
this  hypothesis  supposes.  There  is  the  clock,  with 
its  pendulum  beating.  For  me  now  that  clock  is  a 
combination  of  sensations,  joined  with  a  belief  in 
certain  possible  sensations.  For  one  in  the  same 
room  with  me,  the  clock  has  a  like  existence.  But 
suppose  that  the  clock  has,  apart  from  my  conscious- 
ness, apart  from  the  consciousness  of  any  other  hu- 
man being  or  animal,  an  existence  for  some  other,  as 
yet  undefined,  consciousness.  Suppose  that  for  this 
consciousness  the  clock  in  its  whole  present  condi- 
tion exists,  not  at  all  as  a  "  possibility  of  sensations/' 
but  solely  and  in  all  its  parts  as  a  present  group  of 
sensible  facts,  standing  in  definite  relations.  Sup- 
pose that  the  sensible  facts  that  constitute  this  clock 
as  it  is  given  to  this  hypothetical  consciousness  are 
in  quality  unlike  the  sensations  that  for  me  consti- 
tute the  clock ;  but  that  in  their  relations,  in  their 
number,  in  their  grouping,  in  their  differences  from 
one  another,  these  sensible  facts  as  they  are  for  the 
hypothetical  consciousness  agree  with  the  sensations 
and  with  the  "  possibilities  of  sensation  "  that  for 
me  constitute  the  clock.  Suppose  that  the  clock  as 
it  is  in  the  hypothetical  consciousness  endures  for 
a  considerable  time,  and  is  called  the  real  clock. 
Then  when  I  shut  my  eyes  or  go  away  or  die,  there 
exists  still  the  real  clock,  i.  e.  the  clock  in  the  hy- 
pothetical consciousness.  Though  all  my  fellows  die, 
there  is  still  the  real  clock,  independent  of  our  con- 
sciousness. The  clock  may  for  a  time  go  on  run- 


IDEALISM.  345 

ning ;  that  is,  in  the  hypothetical  consciousness  there 
may  be  a  rhythm  of  sensible  events,  corresponding 
to  what  for  me,  were  I  present,  would  be  the  rhythm 
of  the  pendulum -beats  and  the  movement  of  the 
hands. 

Now  suppose  this  hypothetical  consciousness  ex- 
tended, so  that  it  contains  facts  corresponding  to  my 
ideas  of  the  ether-vibrations  that  fall  upon  or  that 
are  reflected  from  the  face  of  this  clock.  Suppose 
that  it  further  contains  facts  corresponding  to  each 
of  niy  ideas  of  the  relative  position  of  this  clock  and 
of  other  objects.  Suppose  at  last  that  the  hypothet- 
ical consciousness  is  extended  to  all  the  facts  of  what 
I  call  my  universe  of  actual  and  of  possible  sensa- 
tion. Suppose  that  each  possible  or  actual  exp'eri- 
ence  of  each  moment  in  my  life  or  in  the  life  of  any 
other  animal  is  represented  by  some  actual  momen- 
tarily present  fact  in  the  hypothetical  consciousness. 
Then  consider  the  hypothetical  consciousness  at  any 
moment,  and  see  what  it  will  contain.  Every  mate- 
rial atom,  every  wave  of  ether,  every  point  of  space, 
every  configuration  of  material  bodies,  every  possible 
geometrical  relation,  will  be  represented  in  the  hypo- 
thetical consciousness  by  some  definite  fact.  The 
relations  of  these  facts  will  be  in  nature  and  in  com- 
plexity similar  to  the  relations  among  the  facts  of 
my  actual  or  possible  sensations.  On  the  other 
hand,  the  limits  of  my  possible  consciousness  at  any 
moment  will  be  determined  by  the  actual  conscious- 
ness of  this  supposed  universal  Knowing  One.  What 
it  actually  knows,  I  conceivably  might  now  know. 
If  it  is  conscious  of  a  certain  series  of  facts,  then  I 


846         THE   RELIGIOUS   ASPECT    OF   PHILOSOPHY. 

might  be  conscious,  were  I  now  on  the  other  side 
of  the  moon,  of  living  creatures  there.  If  the  hypo- 
thetical consciousness  contains  another  set  of  facts, 
then  I  might  be  unable  to  find  such  living  beings 
were  I  there.  And  so  with  all  facts  of  possible  ex- 
perience. 

We  can  easily  see  how,  under  this  supposition, 
conformity  to  the  supposed  universal  consciousness 
will  become  on  my  part  a  goal  of  effort.  Knowledge 
of  possible  experiences  is  useful  to  me.  But  all  pos- 
sible experiences  are  or  will  be  actual  in  the  hypo- 
thetical consciousness.  If  I  am  standing  near  a  con- 
cealed pitfall,  or  am  in  danger  of  a  blow,  or  in  dan- 
ger of  death  from  poison,  that  fact,  translated  into 
ultimate  terms,  means,  we  may  suppose,  that  in  the 
universal  consciousness  there  is  now  the  knowledge 
of  certain  relative  positions  and  motions  of  atoms. 
The  sequence  of  states  in  the  universal  consciousness 
must  be  supposed  to  be  a  regular  sequence,  subject 
to  fixed  law.  But  sequence  does  not  now  especially 
concern  us ;  since  we  speak  only  of  the  nature  of 
this  external  consciousness.  It  is  enough,  therefore, 
to  point  out  that  this  supposed  universal  knowing 
consciousness,  this  "  Not-Ourselves,"  has,  under  the 
conditions  stated,  all  the  essential  characteristics  of 
a  real  world.  It  is  beyond  us  ;  it  is  independent  of 
us  ;  its  facts  have  a  certain  correspondence  to  our 
sensations.  Under  the  supposition  that  by  nature 
we  tend  to  be  in  agreement  with  this  consciousness, 
progress  in  the  definiteness  and  extent  of  our  agree- 
ment with  it  may  be  both  possible  and  practically 
useful.  This  agreement  would  constitute  truth. 


IDEALISM.  347 

No  other  real  world  need  be  supposed  behind  or 
above  this  consciousness.  Rejection  of  an  old  theory 
and  acceptance  of  a  new,  as  when  the  Copernican 
doctrine  replaces  the  Ptolemaic,  will  mean  the 
growth  of  a  belief  that  the  new  system  of  ideas  cor- 
responds more  nearly  than  the  old,  not  with  dead 
matter,  but  with  the  sequence  of  states  in  the  univer- 
sal consciousness.  The  universal  consciousness  it- 
self will  be  no  illusory  consciousness.  It  will  not 
need  a  further  consciousness  to  support  it.  It  will 
need  no  dead  matter  outside  of  it.  Our  nature  leads 
us  to  look  up  to  it  as  to  our  model.  Itself  is  the 
pattern,  looking  up  to  no  other  model.  The  purpose/ 
of  thought  will  be  conformity  with  this  perfect,  un-j 
trammeled  thought.  For  us  there  is  a  little  range 
of  actual  sensation,  in  the  midst  of  a  vast  ocean  of 
possible  sensation.  For  the  universal  consciousness 
there  are  at  any  moment  only  actual  data.  We  see 
the  clock-face  ;  and  for  us  the  inside  of  the  clock  is 
possible  sensation  only.  For  the  supposed  conscious- 
ness the  inside  will  be  as  much  present  as  the  out- 
side. For  us  colors  and  odors  suggest  possible  sen- 
sations, which  science  interprets  as  being  in  the  last 
analysis  the  possible  sensations  known  as  atoms,  mo- 
tions, velocities,  distances.  For  the  universal  con- 
sciousness, these  atoms,  motions,  velocities,  and  dis- 
tances, or  the  ultimate  facts  to  which  these  notions 
correspond,  are  not  possible  but  actual  data.  There 
need  be  then,  in  the  last  analysis,  no  dead  uncon- 
scious atoms,  nor  yet  unconscious  little  atom-souls, 
striving,  fighting,  loving,  uniting  ;  there  need  be  in 
the  last  analysis  only  a  consciousness  of  facts  corre- 


348         THE   RELIGIOUS   ASPECT   OF   PHILOSOPHY. 

spending  to  what  we  mean  by  motion,  velocity,  ex- 
tension, distance,  impenetrability.  Corresponding 
to  the  relation  a :  b  in  our  consciousness  there  will 
then  be  the  external  fact  A :  B,  whereof  so  much  is 
supposed  to  be  known :  first,  that  the  relation  a  :  b 
is  somewhat  like  the  relation  A  :  B  ;  secondly,  that 
the  terms  A  and  B,  whatever  their  particular  char- 
acter, are  facts  for  a  consciousness,  and  nothing 
but  facts  for  a  consciousness.  And  the  hypothetical 
consciousness  for  which  these  facts  are  all  present, 
together  with  their  manifold  relations,  this  we  may 
call  a  World  -  Consciousness.  An  illusion  in  my 
consciousness  will  mean  a  failure  to  correspond  with 
the  world-consciousness.  A  truth  for  my  conscious- 
ness will  be  a  relation  a :  b  that  corresponds  with 
some  relation  A  :  B  in  the  world -consciousness. 
But  for  the  world-consciousness  itself  there  will  be 
no  question  of  its  own  truth  or  falsity.  It  will  be 
for  and  in  itself.  It  will  not  have  to  create  a  real 
world ;  it  will  be  a  real  world.  It  will  not  have  a 
Nature  as  its  own  Otherness,  over  against  itself. 
It  will  be  in  its  own  facts  and  in  their  sequence  a 
nature.  As  to  the  individual  intelligences,  its  rela- 
tion to  them  is  so  far  viewed  as  one  of  independence. 
Whether  hereafter  we  shall  be  forced  to  modify  our 
view  or  not,  so  far  we  treat  the  individual  intelli- 
gences as  separate  from  the  world  consciousness. 
They  are  neither  its  "  emanations  "  nor  its  "  modes." 
But  their  whole  business  and  purpose  will  be  to  carry 
out  and  to  make  full  and  definite  that  correspondence 
with  this  universal  consciousness  upon  which  their 
existence  and  their  peace  depend.  A  certain  lack 


IDEALISM.  349 

of  correspondence  with  the  universal  consciousness 
on  the  part  of  any  animal's  ideas  will  be  followed 
by  the  cessation  of  that  particular  grouping  of  facts 
in  the  universal  consciousness  that  is  known  to  us 
as  this  animal's  body.  With  the  dissolution  of  this 
animal's  body  will  cease  his  consciousness,  his  chance 
of  disagreeing  in  his  states  with  the  states  of  the 
universal  consciousness,  and  therefore  his  lack  of 
correspondence.  An  ultimate  law  of  sequence,  with 
which,  as  with  all  causal  connection,  we  have  here 
nothing  to  do,  thus  binds  the  individual  beings  to 
the  World-Consciousness.  The  whole  universe  ex- 
hibits the  phenomenon,  first,  of  one  great  conscious- 
ness, embracing  an  infinitude  of  geometrical,  phys- 
ical, chemical,  physiological  facts  ;  and,  secondly,  of  a 
vast  multitude  of  individual  conscious  beings,  whose 
number  and  sorts  we  shall  never  be  able  to  tell,  whose 
destiny,  however,  demands  of  all  of  them  a  more  or 
less  imperfect  likeness  between  their  states  and  the 
relations  thereof  on  the  one  hand,  and  the  facts  of 
the  universal  consciousness  on  the  other  hand.  The 
universal  consciousness,  be  it  noted,  is  so  called  thus 
far  as  including  in  its  ken  all  ultimate  mathematical 
and  physical  facts.  Of  its  nature  beyond  this  we 
pretend  to  suppose  nothing.  And  we  have  not  sup- 
posed it  to  include  the  individual  conscious  beings. 
Our  hypothesis  is  not  yet  pantheistic,  nor  theistic. 
We  simply  suppose  a  "  Not  -  Ourselves  "  that  in- 
cludes all  natural  knowledge.  This  is  the  External 
Eeality. 

We  have  omitted,  moreover,  all  reference  to  the 
teleological  element  that  is  generally  introduced  into 


350         THE   RELIGIOUS  ASPECT    OF   PHILOSOPHY. 

any  theory  of  a  World-Spirit.  So  far,  in  fact,  our 
World-Consciousness  is  not  what  people  mean  by  a 
World-Spirit.  A  Spirit,  "  weaving  the  living  robe 
of  Deity,"  our  World-Consciousness  is  not ;  for  as 
so  far  described  it  does  nothing,  it  merely  looks  on. 
It  looks  at  its  own  states,  and  these  are  supposed  to 
be  altogether  its  own,  given  from  no  higher  source. 
But  as  to  their  succession  or  their  worth,  their  be- 
ginning or  their  end,  we  have  said  nothing.  This 
Consciousness  has  these  states,  but  we  have  supposed 
them  as  yet  to  be  attended  by  no  emotion  of  pleas- 
ure or  of  pain,  by  no  modifying  reaction  of  will. 
This  consciousness  is  not  a  Creator,  it  is  a  Seer. 
As  for  the  individual  conscious  beings,  it  does  not 
make  or  unmake  them  by  an  exercise  of  power. 
They,  on  the  contrary,  are  made  and  unmade  ac- 
cording as  there  arise  or  disappear  in  this  universal 
consciousness  certain  groups  of  data  that,  as  repre- 
sented in  our  mortal  thought,  are  called  organic 
living  bodies,  with  tissues,  motions,  structures,  func- 
tions. These  groups  pass,  and  with  them  the  individ- 
ual consciousness  that  coexisted  with  each.  This 
growth  and  decay  is  simply  a  law  of  experience,  an 
ultimate  and  inexplicable  sequence.  But  the  uni- 
versal consciousness  of  nature,  for  which  each  of 
these  groups  of  physical  facts  existed,  that  remains. 
In  other  words  :  Each  animal  body  is  represented 
in  the  universal  consciousness,  and  exists  only  in  so 
far  as  it  is  represented  therein,  or  is  known  to  its 
possessor  or  to  other  animals.  The  individual  mind 
that  coexists  with  this  body  has  thus  far  no  represen- 
tative in  the  universal  consciousness,  but  seems  to 


IDEALISM.  351 

exist  and  be  real  for  itself.  With  the  group  of  facts 
in  the  universal  consciousness  to  which,  as  we  say, 
corresponds  our  idea  of  the  body,  the  independent 
group  of  facts  called  the  animal's  mind  lives  and 
dies.  The  universal  consciousness  and  the  individual 
minds  make  up  together  the  sum  total  of  reality. 
So  far  and  so  far  only  do  we  as  yet  go.  The  sequel 
will  show  whether  we  can  rest  content  with  this. 

Continuing  to  mention  the  consequences  of  our 
hypothesis,  we  see  that  the  well-known  questions  so 
often  asked  of  idealists  are  no  longer  puzzling  when 
we  accept  such  an  idea  as  the  foregoing.  Such 
questions  are  :  What  existed  before  there  was  any 
conscious  life  on  the  planet?  In  what  sense  was 
there  light  or  heat,  matter  or  motion,  before  there 
were  eyes  to  see,  tactile  organs  to  feel,  animal  intel- 
ligence to  understand  these  external  facts?  The 
question  of  Kant  too  about  the  subjectivity  of  space 
would  seem  to  have  been  answered.  Before  there 
were  conscious  beings  on  this  planet,  this  planet  ex- 
isted only  in  and  for  the  universal  consciousness. 
In  that  consciousness  were  facts  corresponding  to  all 
the  phenomena,  or  possibilities  of  experience,  that 
geological  science  may  declare  to  have  really  existed 
at  such  a  time.  When  the  earth  became  filled  with 
life,  there  appeared  in  the  universal  consciousness 
the  data  known  as  organisms.  And  at  the  same 
time,  beside  the  universal  consciousness,  somehow 
related  to  it,  there  arose  individual  conscious  beings, 
whose  states  were  more  or  less  imperfect  copies  of 
the  universal  consciousness  in  certain  of  its  facts. 
Even  so,  empty  space  is  now  existent  beyond  the 


352        THE   RELIGIOUS   ASPECT   OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

borders  of  finite  observation  only  as  a  group  of 
states  in  the  world-consciousness.  Space  is  subjec- 
tive, belonging  to  the  states  of  the  universal  con- 
sciousness ;  and  yet  to  us  objective,  since  in  think- 
ing it  we  merely  conform  ourselves  to  the  universal 
consciousness.  But  the  consequences  of  our  hypoth- 
esis are  numberless.  Enough  has  been  said  of  them 
for  the  present  purpose. 

Wild  and  airy  indeed  !  But  why  so  ?  The  ordi- 
nary uncritical  Atomism  is  a  worse  hypothesis,  be- 
cause we  never  get  from  it  the  least  notion  of  how 
this  eternally  existent  matter  may  look  and  feel  when 
nobody  sees  or  feels  it.  The  mystical  "  one  sub- 
stance with  two  faces  "  is  worse,  because  that  is  no 
hypothesis,  only  a  heap  of  words.  Schopenhauer's 
"  Wille  "  is  worse,  because  it  is  only  a  metaphor. 
The  hypothesis  that  ascribes  to  the  atoms  independ- 
ent life  and  volition  is  no  more  adequate  than  our 
hypothesis,  and  much  less  simple.  The  old-fashioned 
pantheistic  "  Welt-Geist  "  of  Schelling,  and  of  the 
romantic  philosophy  generally,  is  more  poetical  than 
our  hypothesis,  but  that  Welt-Geist  is  a  Power  ;  and 
no  one  ever  comes  to  understand  how  this  One  Spirit, 
who  after  all  is  represented  as  a  sort  of  big  half -con- 
scious Daemon,  a  gigantic  worker,  is  related  to  the 
many  individual  minds.  They  are  parts  of  him,  or 
else  apart  from  him.  In  the  one  case  their  confidence 
that  they  really  exist  as  powers  and  are  not  "  things 
in  his  dream,"  is  unfounded  ;  in  the  other  case  his 
all-embracing  unity  is  destroyed.  In  our  hypothesis 
nothing  is  as  yet  wonderful  but  the  one  miracle  of  the 
series  of  orderly  conscious  states,  following  through 


IDEALISM.  353 

all  time  according  to  fixed  laws.  Beyond  that  all 
is  clear.  That  there  should  be  a  consciousness  con- 
taining ideas  of  all  material  relations,  is  no  harder 
to  believe  than  it  is  to  believe  in  the  ordinary  unin- 
telligible world  of  atoms.  That  beside  this  con- 
sciousness, and  in  fixed  relation  to  its  facts,  there 
should  exist  a  great  number  of  different  series  of 
conscious  states,  each  series  being  called  an  individ- 
ual, this  is  no  harder  to  believe  than  are  the  ordi- 
nary facts  of  nervous  physiology.  In  reality  this 
hypothesis  gives  us  a  simple  expression,  easily  intel- 
ligible, for  all  the  facts  and  laws  of  physics,  of  ner- 
vous physiology,  and  of  consciousness.  Take,  as  a 
final  case,  Professor  Clifford's  well-known  example  of 
the  man  looking  at  the  candle.  In  the  world-con- 
sciousness there  is  the  group  of  states  c,  c(,  cn.  .  .  . 
That  is  the  real  candle.  In  the  world-consciousness 
there  is  also  the  group  of  states  A,  A',  hn.  .  .  .  That 
is  the  "  cerebral  image  "  of  the  candle,  a  physiolog- 
ical fact.  Finally,  according  to  the  laws  of  reality, 
the  existence  in  the  world-consciousness  of  the  facts 
A,  A',  W,  .  .  .  grouped  as  they  are,  has  coexistent 
with  it  the  group  of  ideas  C  in  the  man's  mind. 
This  group  C  corresponds  more  or  less  completely  to 
the  group  c,  cf  c",  ...  as  that  group  exists  beyond 
the  man's  mind,  in  the  world-consciousness.  The 
group  C  is  the  man's  idea  of  the  candle.  Such  is 
our  hypothesis  in  a  nut-shell.  We  urge  for  the  mo- 
ment only  this  in  its  favor :  that  it  is  simple,  intelli- 
gible, plausible.  After  all,  it  is  but  an  hypothesis. 
We  must  now  follow  it  until  we  shall  find  it,  by  vir- 
tue of  one  momentous  consideration,  suddenly  trans- 

23 


354         THE  RELIGIOUS  ASPECT   OF   PHILOSOPHY. 

formed  from  an  hypothesis  into  a  theory,  and  from 
a  doctrine  of  an  eternal  normal  thought  into  a  doc- 
trine of  an  all-embracing  Spirit. 


III. 

In  several  respects  our  hypothesis  needs  explana- 
tion before  it  can  well  please  a  philosophic  student. 
This  explanation  will  next  lead  us  into  a  decidedly 
technical  discussion,  and  this  a  reader  not  specially 
accustomed  to  philosophic  discussions,  if  such  a 
reader  we  yet  have,  will  do  well  to  omit.  We  must 
in  fact,  in  the  present  section,  more  •  particularly  set 
forth  the  motives  that  have  determined  us  to  try  just 
this  hypothesis  about  Reality. 

First,  then,  we  are  concerned  to  show  why  we  have 
left  out  of  view  the  causal  element  that  popular 
thought  makes  so  prominent  in  its  conception  of 
Reality.  For  popular  thought,  the  world  is  a  Power 
that  causes  our  perceptions.  But  we,  both  here  and 
in  our  subsequent  religious  discussion,  shall  consider 
the  eternal  not  as  Power,  but  as  Thought.  Why  is 
this  ?  We  shall  here  try  to  explain,  still  regarding 
the  real  world  merely  as  something  postulated  to 
meet  the  inner  needs  of  our  thought.  Let  us  ask, 
without  as  yet  going  beyond  this  point  of  view,  what 
is  the  deepest  motive  of  our  purely  theoretic  postu- 
lates about  reality  ?  Is  it  not  to  have  something  that 
corresponds  to  our  ideas,  and  so  gives  them  truth  ? 
Therefore  is  not  the  postulate  that  reality  corre- 
sponds to  our  ideas,  deeper  than  the  postulate  that  a 
real  world  causes  our  ideas?  And  so  is  not  the 


IDEALISM.  355 

causal  postulate  in  fact  but  a  subordinate  form  in 
our  theory  of  the  world  ?  To  exemplify.  When  I 
say  that  my  thought  demands  some  cause,  C,  for  a 
sensation,  s,  does  not  my  thought  even  here  actually 
demand  something  prior  to  the  principle  of  causa- 
tion, and  deeper  than  that  ?  Does  not  my  thought 
here  demand  that  my  idea  c  of  cause  in  general,  and 
my  idea  r  of  the  causal  relation  R  between  C  and  s, 
shall  a  priori  somehow  correspond  to  the  truth  of 
things  ?  Can  I  conceive  of  a  real  cause  save  by  vir- 
tue of  a  postulate  that  my  conception  of  a  real  cause 
is  like  the  real  cause  itself  ?  Therefore,  when  men 
say  :  "  We  know  external  Reality  because  we  know 
that  our  sensations  need  a  cause,  and  that  this  cause 
must  be  external  to  us,"  do  they  say  more  than  this : 
"  We  know  (or  postulate)  that  to  one  of  our  ideas, 
namely,  the  idea  of  a  necessary  causal  relation,  there 
corresponds  a  reality  external  to  the  idea  ?  "  For 
surely  I  do  not  know  the  validity  of  my  idea  of  a 
causal  relation  merely  on  the  ground  that  I  know 
that  this  idea  of  causal  relation  must  itself  have 
been  caused  by  the  real  existence  of  causal  relations 
in  the  world.  Such  an  attempt  to  justify  my  idea 
would  mean  endless  regress.  The  deeper  notion 
that  we  have  of  the  world  is  therefore  founded  on 
the  insight  or  on  the  postulate  that  there  must  be, 
not  merely  a  sufficient  cause  for  our  thought,  but  a 
sufficient  counterpart  thereto. 

We  can  easily  illustrate  this  view  by  considering 
the  nature  of  our  thought  about  past  time.  The 
judgment  or  assertion  that  there  has  actually  been 
a  series  of  past  events,  is  not  a  judgment  of  causal- 


356  THE   RELIGIOUS   ASPECT    OF    PHILOSOPHY. 

ity.  I  believe  in  a  past  as  I  believe  in  a  future,  not 
to  satisfy  my  faith  in  the  principle  of  causality,  but 
to  satisfy  my  tendency  to  postulate  an  indefinite 
time-stream,  like  in  nature  to  my  present  succession 
of  immediately  given  states.  I  believe  in  a  real 
time,  not  primarily  as  the  cause  but  as  the  counter- 
part of  my  notion  of  time.  How  otherwise  shall  I 
form  the  idea  of  a  cause  at  all,  unless  I  have  already 
assumed  the  reality  of  time  ?  A  cause  for  my  be- 
lief in  the  past  is  to  be  conceived,  if  at  all,  only  as 
already  a  past  fact.  The  conception  that  it  is  to  cre- 
ate is  a  condition  of  its  own  existence,  unless  indeed 
one  has  admitted  what  we  wish  admitted,  that,  how- 
ever the  case  may  be  with  the  belief  in  any  one  past 
fact,  the  belief  in  past  reality  as  such  is  prior  to  our 
belief  that  our  present  state  has  been  caused  by  the 
past.  But  the  same  priority  of  the  belief  in  some 
agreement  between  my  idea  and  the  external  reality, 
is  found  in  all  departments  of  thought.  A  material 
cause  of  my  experience  is  a  cause  in  space.  But, 
however  I  came  by  the  idea  of  space,  my  present  be- 
lief in  the  reality  of  space  precedes  any  particular 
belief  in  a  material  cause  for  a  particular  sensation, 
and  renders  the  latter  belief  possible.  The  concep- 
tion of  reality  furnished  by  the  search  for  causes  is 
thus  always  subordinate  to  the  conception  of  reality 
furnished  by  our  first  postulate.  This  first  postu- 
late is,  that  our  ideas  have  something  beyond  them 
and  like  them.  So  at  each  moment  of  my  life  I 
postulate  a  past  and  future  of  my  own,  like  my  pres- 
ent consciousness,  but  external  thereto.  So  my  so- 
cial consciousness,  my  original  unreflective  tendency 


IDEALISM.  357 

to  work  with  and  for  other  beings,  implies  the  pos- 
tulate of  the  external  existence  of  my  fellow-men, 
like  myself  and  like  my  ideas  of  them.  So  to  the 
present  intuition  of  the  space  in  the  retinal  field  or 
at  my  finger  tips  I  join  the  postulate  of  an  infinitely 
extended  not  perceived  space,  like  the  perceived 
space,  and  like  my  space-ideas. 

The  external  reality  conceived  by  us  is  therefore, 
so  far  as  we  have  yet  seen,  conceived  through  a  spon- 
taneous reaction  of  the  receiving  consciousness  in 
presence  of  the  sense-data  received.  The  forms  of 
this  reaction  it  was  the  purpose  of  the  Critical  Phi- 
losophy to  define.  The  task  set  by  Kant  has  not  yet 
been  accomplished.  But  the  fact  of  some  reaction 
seems  established.  And  the  general  law  of  the  proc- 
ess seems  to  be  that  the  external  reality  is  conceived 
after  the  pattern  of  the  present  data,  with  such  mod- 
ification as  is  necessary  to  bring  the  conception  into 
harmony  with  already  established  habits  of  thought, 
and  with  the  conceived  results  of  previous  experience. 
The  aim  of  the  whole  process  seems  to  be  to  reach 
as  complete  and  united  a  conception  of  reality  as  is 
possible,  a  conception  wherein  the  greatest  fullness 
of  data  shall  be  combined  with  the  greatest  simplic- 
ity of  conception.  The  effort  of  consciousness  seems 
to  be  to  combine  the  greatest  richness  of  content 
with  the  greatest  definiteness  of  organization. 

This  character  of  our  activity  in  forming  our  no- 
tion of  reality  implies  the  subordination  of  the  cau- 
sal postulate  to  other  motives.  In  the  scientific  field 
the  postulate  of  causality  is  predominant,  because 
there  the  notion  of  a  world  of  causal  sequences  in 


358         THE   RELIGIOUS   ASPECT    OF   PHILOSOPHY. 

time  and  in  space  has  been  already  built  up,  and 
what  remains  is  to  fill  out  the  picture  by  discovering 
the  particular  sequences.  But  if  I  try  to  banish  al- 
together from  my  notion  of  external  reality  the  idea 
that  it  is  an  adequate  counterpart  of  my  subjective 
states  of  consciousness,  what  will  remain  ?  Simply 
the  notion  of  an  utterly  unknowable  external  cause 
of  my  sensations.  Of  this  nothing  will  be  said,  but 
that  it  is.  Science,  experience,  serious  reflection 
about  reality,  will  utterly  cease.  I  shall  have  re- 
maining a  kind  of  Disfigured  Realism,  where  the 
real  will  be  as  unknowable,  as  unreal  as  possible. 
But  reintroduce  the  omitted  postulate,  admit  that 
reality  is  conceived  as  the  counterpart  of  my  con- 
sciousness, and  then  the  principle  of  causality  can 
be  fruitfully  applied.  Then  indeed  experience  may 
lead  us  to  conceive  the  external  reality  as  unlike 
this  or  that  suggestive  sensation,  unlike  this  or  that 
provisional  idea.  But  we  shall  be  led  to  new  concep- 
tions, and  shall  be  able  to  make  definite  progress,  so 
long  as  we  postulate  some  sort  of  likeness  between 
inner  and  outer. 

In  brief,  as  causality  means  uniform  sequence,  the 
acceptance  of  any  causal  relation  as  real  involves 
a  conception  of  the  uniform  sequence  that  is  to  be 
accepted.  When  finally  accepted,  the  sequence  in 
question  is  conceived  as  a  real  fact,  wholly  or  par- 
tially external  to  present  consciousness,  but  like  our 
present  idea  of  itself.  Causal  sequence  cannot  there- 
fore be  placed  first,  as  giving  us  a  totally  undefined 
notion  of  an  external  reality ;  but  second,  as  ena- 
bling us  to  develop  in  detail  the  idea  that  reality  is 


IDEALISM.  359 

like  our  own  states  of  consciousness.  Of  course  to 
prove  by  sense  experience  that  the  external  reality 
is  like  our  states  of  consciousness,  this  we  can  never 
accomplish.  But  from  the  outset  we  have  seen  that 
verification  through  experience  is  in  this  field  impos- 
sible. The  whole  of  this  sensuous  reality,  past,  pres- 
ent, future,  all  that  is  outside  of  what  one  now  sees 
and  feels,  all  space,  time,  matter,  motion,  life  beyond 
this  immediate  experience,  —  all  that  is  so  far  only 
a  postulated  experience,  and  therefore  never  a  da- 
tum, never  in  detail  verifiable  for  sense.  Since  we 
believe  in  this  external  reality,  if  experience  suggests 
with  sufficient  force  the  idea  that  some  causal  se- 
quence is  real,  our  postulate  that  such  suggestions 
have  their  counterpart  in  an  external  world  leads  us 
to  regard  the  conceived  causal  sequence  as  an  exter- 
nally real  fact.  Not  however  do  we  first  conceive  of 
the  external  reality  as  cause,  and  then  in  the  second 
place  only  find  it  to  be  or  not  to  be  the  counterpart 
of  present  consciousness.  All  our  thinking  is  based 
on  the  postulate  that  the  external  reality  is  a  coun- 
terpart and  not  merely  a  cause.  If  with  time,  we 
drop  mythological  conceptions  of  external  reality, 
we  do  so  only  because,  in  the  presence  of  a  larger 
and  fuller  experience,  we  no  longer  find  old  concep- 
tions, founded  largely  on  lower  forms  of  emotion  and 
on  narrower  experience,  adequate  to  our  notion  of 
the  external  counterpart  of  consciousness.  For  de- 
mons and  entities  we  substitute  atoms  and  ethereal 
media,  not  because  we  abandon  the  position  that  ex- 
ternal reality  resembles  our  ideas,  but  because  wider 
experience  is  found  to  be  best  reduced  to  unity  by 


360         THE   EELIGIOUS   ASPECT   OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

the  latter,  not  by  the  former  ideas.  The  atoms  and 
the  media  are  themselves  only  provisional  notions, 
since  more  experience  may  be  better  reduced  to  unity, 
for  all  we  yet  know,  by  some  other  ideas.  But 
throughout  remains  the  postulate  :  external  reality  is 
somewhat  like  our  ideas  of  its  nature. 

We  have  been  betrayed  by  the  doctrine  that  we 
have  combated  into  forms  of  speech  that  do  not  ade- 
quately express  the  Critical  notion  of  reality.  We 
hasten  to  complete  our  conception  by  adding  the 
omitted  elements.  External  reality  is  like  our  con- 
ceptions of  it ;  so  much,  we  have  seen,  is  universally 
postulated  (postulated,  be  it  noticed,  not  directly  ex- 
perienced, not  forced  upon  us  from  without).  But 
the  kind  of  likeness  still  remains  to  be  defined.  Can 
the  external  reality  be  conceived  as  being,  although 
in  nature  like  our  conscious  states,  yet  in  no  neces- 
sary relation  to  consciousness,  as  being  neither  a  con- 
sciousness nor  for  a  consciousness  ?  The  answer  is 
the  whole  struggle  of  idealistic  thought,  the  whole 
progress  of  philosophical  analysis  in  modern  times. 
One  cannot  go  over  the  field  again  and  again  for- 
ever. The  state  of  the  controversy  can  be  roughly 
stated  thus :  When  the  notion  of  external  reality 
is  based  solely  upon  the  application  of  the  notion  of 
causality,  all  degrees  of  likeness  or  unlikeness  be- 
tween thought  and  things  are  assumed,  according  to 
the  tastes  of  individual  thinkers.  External  reality 
is  once  for  all  absolved  from  the  condition  of  being 
intelligible,  and  becomes  capable  of  being  anything 
you  please,  a  dead  atom,  an  electric  fluid,  a  ghost,  a 
devil,  an  Unknowable.  But  if  the  subordinate  char- 


IDEALISM.  361 

acter  of  this  postulate  of  causality  is  once  under- 
stood, the  conception  of  reality  is  altered.  What  i's 
real  must  be  not  only  vaguely  correspondent  to  an 
ill-defined  postulate,  but  in  a  definite  relation  of  like- 
ness to  my  present  consciousness.  That  this  is  the 
actual  postulate  of  human  thought  is  shown  by  those 
systems  themselves  that  ignore  the  postulate  of  like- 
N»ess,  and  has  been  illustrated  in  the  foregoing.  But 
what  forms  does  this  postulated  likeness  take  ?  For 
the  first,  the  postulated  likeness  between  my  idea 
and  the  external  reality  may  be  a  likeness  between 
my  present  conscious  state  and  a  past  or  future  state 
of  my  own,  or  between  this  present  state  and  the 
conscious  state  of  another  being.  The  whole  social 
consciousness  implies  the  postulate  of  a  likeness  be- 
tween my  ideas  and  an  actual  consciousness  external 
to  mine,  fashioned  in  my  own  image.  But  the  sec- 
ond generally  recognized  form  in  which  the  postu- 
late of  the  likeness  of  internal  and  external  appears 
is  the  form  according  to  which  I  postulate  that  a 
present  idea  of  my  own  is  not  like  one  of  my  own 
past  or  future  states,  not  like  any  actual  past  or 
future  state  in  another  being  of  my  own  kind,  but 
like  a  possible  experience.  That  our  ideas  can  ade- 
quately express  possibilities  of  sensation  that  are 
actually  never  realized,  either  in  ourselves  or  in  any 
other  known  creature,  this  is  a  familiar  postulate  of 
natural  science.  The  laws  of  nature  are  generally, 
as  is  admitted  by  all,  what  Lewes  called  "  ideal  con- 
structions," expressing  experiences  for  us  never  real- 
ized, but  permanently  possible.  And  so  extended  is 
the  use  of  the  concept  of  possible  experience,  that,  as 


362         THE   RELIGIOUS   ASPECT    OF   PHILOSOPHY. 

we  know,  Mill  in  one  of  his  most  interesting  chap- 
ters gave  "  permanent  possibility  of  sensation  "  as 
an  adequate  definition  of  matter. 

Now  the  position  of  modern  phenomenism  is,  that 
by  these  two  postulates,  or  forms  of  the  one  postu- 
late of  Likeness,  the  whole  notion  of  external  reality 
is  exhausted. 

The  external  world  means,  according  to  this  posi- 
tion, the  possible  and  actual  present,  past,  and  fut- 
ure content  of  consciousness  for  all  beings.  And 
this  result  of  modern  phenomenism  we  regard,  thus 
far,  as  the  most  acceptable  postulate  about  the  world. 
Either  as  postulate  or  as  demonstrable  theory  the 
position  is  maintained  by  all  the  modern  idealists. 
You  can  find  it,  for  example,  stated  in  Fichte's  "  Bes- 
timmung  des  Menschen "  and  other  shorter  philo- 
sophic essays  (less  successfully,  we  think,  though 
much  more  at  length,  in  the  two  larger  expositions 
of  the  "  Wissenschaftslehre),  in  the  Hegelian  "Pha- 
nomenologie,"  in  Schopenhauer's  "  Welt  als  Wille 
und  Vorstellung,"  in  Terrier's  "  Institutes  of  Meta- 
physic,"  in  J.  S.  Mill's  "  Examination  of  Hamilton," 
in  Mr.  Shadworth  Hodgson's  "  Time  and  Space  " 
and  "  Philosophy  of  Eeflection,"  in  M.  Renouvier's 
"  Logique  G6nerale,"  in  lesser  books  innumerable, 
for  example,  in  Professor  Baumann's  "  Philosophic 
als  Orientirung  iiber  die  Welt "  (in  the  first  chapter), 
in  Professor  Schuppe's  "  Erkenntnisstheoretische 
Logik,"  in  Professor  Bergmann's  "  Reine  Logik." 
Not  of  course  that  all  this  multitude  of  thinkers,  dif- 
ferent in  method,  in  ability,  in  aim,  in  everything 
but  in  the  fact  that  they  are  post-Kantian  idealists, 


IDEALISM.  363 

would  accept  the  foregoing  statement  as  a  fairly 
complete  account  of  their  doctrines.  Some  of  them 
would  laugh  at  the  simplicity  of  our  terms.  But,  we 
choose  to  mention  so  confused  a  list  to  show  how,  in 
the  midst  of  the  greatest  variations,  they  all  agree 
about  one  fundamental  truth,  namely,  that  thought, 
when  it  inquires  into  its  own  meaning,  can  never 
rest  satisfied  with  any  idea  of  external  reality  that 
makes  such  reality  other  than  a  datum  of  conscious- 
ness, and  so  material  for  thought.  Sensualism  and 
the  most  transcendent  a  priori  speculation  agree  in 
coming  at  last  to  flee  in  ceaseless  unrest  from  every 
support  for  an  external  reality  that  may  seem  to 
offer  itself  beyond  the  bounds  of  consciousness.  This 
phenomenism  of  post-Kantian  speculation  we  accept, 
as  at  all  events  the  simplest  and  least  contradictory 
postulate. 

So  much,  then,  for  one  motive  of  our  hypothesis 
about  the  world-consciousness.  Reality  appears  as 
the  object  either  of  an  actual  or  of  a  possible  con- 
sciousness. But  there  remains  in  this  definition 
of  the  postulate  still  one  obscure  point.  What  is 
meant  by  possible  consciousness  ?  What  can  there 
be  for  consciousness  beyond  the  grand  total  of  all 
actual  past  and  future  states  of  consciousness  in  all 
beings  ?  For  what  purpose  and  by  what  right  shall 
we  build  a  world  of  possibility  above  or  beside  the 
world  of  actual  experience  ?  This  question  seems 
too  little  appreciated  and  too  much  evaded  by  most 
thinkers.  When  Mill  called  matter  a  "permanent 
possibility  of  sensation,"  he  left  room  open  for  the 
puzzling  question  :  But  what  is  this  creature  called 


364         THE   EELIGIOUS   ASPECT    OF   PHILOSOPHY. 

a  possibility?  Is  it  an  actual  fact?  Then  what 
actual  fact?  If  not  actual,  then  in  being  a  mere 
possibility  matter  is  non-existent. 

This  scholastic  character  of  the  abstract  noun 
"  possibility "  was  remarked  and  criticised  by  Pro- 
fessor Max  Miiller  in  an  article  in  "Mind,"  III.1 
We  shall  not  find  in  most  writers  on  this  subject  less 
scholastic  or  better  defined  terms  for  naming  the 
same  aspect  of  the  postulate  of  external  reality.  In 
fact,  if  we  suppose  that  one  surveys  the  whole  range 
of  actual  consciousness,  past,  present,  and  future,  and 
postulates  no  facts  that  are  not  for  and  in  conscious- 
ness, it  is  difficult  to  see  what  will  be  the  meaning 
of  any  added  "possible  reality."  Possible,  for  the 
first,  is  anything  that  one  conceives,  in  so  far  as  one 
conceives  it  at  all.  I  could  possibly  have  wings  and 
a  long  tail,  an  hundred  eyes,  and  a  mountain  of  gold. 
All  that  is  possible,  but  in  what  sense?  In  this 
sense,  that  I  do  actually  imagine  myself  as  possess- 
ing these  things.  "  Empty  possibilities,"  or  "  imag- 
inations as  one  would,"  are  facts  of  consciousness  in 
so  far  forth  as  they  are  imagined  ;  and  they  have  no 
other  existence.  The  world  of  truth  is  not  enriched 
by  these  possibilities,  whose  whole  existence  is  in 
the  actual  conscious  idea  of  them.  But  not  in  this 

1  P.  347.  "  If  therefore  Mill  and  his  followers  imagine  that  by 
defining  Matter  as  the  permanent  possibility  of  sensation,  and  Mind 
as  the  permanent  possibility  of  feeling,  they  have  removed  the  dif- 
ficulty of  Kant's  Ding  an  sick,  they  are  mistaken.  Their  possibil- 
ity of  sensation,  if  properly  analyzed,  means  things  or  substances 
which  can  become  objects  of  sensation."  Professor  Miiller's  result 
is  not  one  that  we  can  wholly  accept ;  his  criticism  of  the  word 
possibility  is  important. 


IDEALISM.  365 

sense  is  matter  to  be  a  "permanent  possibility  of 
sensation."  The  icebergs  in  the  polar  seas  are  to  be 
real,  not  in  so  far  as  I  now  imagine  them,  but  in  so 
far  as  there  exists  or  holds  good  the  law,  that  were 
I  present  I  should  see  them,  were  I  to  touch  them  I 
should  feel  them,  and  that  both  seeing  and  feeling 
would  be  determined  in  certain  ways  beyond  the 
control  of  my  will.  The  pages  of  that  closed  book, 
the  bones  inside  the  body  of  that  cat,  my  own  brain, 
the  molecules  of  the  oxygen  that  I  am  breathing,  all 
these,  in  so  far  as  they  are  not  now  actually  in  my 
consciousness,  are  to  be  still  real  as  "  possible  expe- 
riences." But  what  kind  of  unreal  reality  is  this 
potential  actuality  ? 

If  we  inquire  into  the  motive  that  leads  us  to 
postulate  these  possible  experiences,  we  shall  find  it 
to  be  the  familiar  and  universal  wish  to  apply  the 
postulate  of  uniformity  to  our  confused  actual  ex- 
perience. Our  actual  experience  is  not  always  gov- 
erned by  obvious  laws  of  regular  sequence.  But  in 
postulating  consciousness  beyond  our  own  immediate 
data,  we  are  led,  by  our  known  prejudice  in  favor  of 
unity  and  simplicity,  to  postulate  that  the  real  suc- 
cessions of  facts  are  uniform,  whatever  may  be  the 
case  with  the  fragments  of  reality  that  fall  within 
our  individual  experience.  I  see  an  apple  fall,  and 
no  more  than  that.  But  I  postulate  that  if  I  could 
have  had  experience  of  all  the  facts,  I  should  have 
observed  a  series  of  material  changes  in  the  twig  on 
which  the  apple  hung,  that  would  have  sufficed  to 
restore  the  broken  uniformity  and  continuity  of  my 
experiences.  In  this  way  it  is  that,  as  remarked 


366         THE   RELIGIOUS   ASPECT    OF   PHILOSOPHY. 

above,  the  conception  of  causal  sequence  does  not 
create,  but  organizes  and  perfects,  our  notion  of  ex- 
ternal reality.  There  is  something  beyond  our  expe- 
rience, namely,  another  experience ;  that  is  the  first 
postulate.  Experiences  form  an  uniform  and  regular 
whole  of  laws  of  sequence.  That  is  the  other  postu- 
late, subordinate  to  the  first.  This  postulate  helps 
to  form  for  us  our  idea  of  the  material  world  beyond 
individual  consciousness ;  an  idea  that  science  ac- 
cepts for  its  uniformity,  without  inquiring  further 
into  its  nature,  while  a  more  critical  reflection  de- 
clares that  the  facts  assumed  as  existent  beyond  the 
range  of  individual  conscious  beings  are  "  possible 
experiences." 

This  assumption  of  "  possible  experiences,"  an  as- 
sumption made  to  satisfy  the  postulate  of  uniform- 
ity, was  expressed,  in  our  hypothesis  of  a  world- 
consciousness,  by  the  supposition  of  an  universal 
actual  experience.  Why?  We  answer,  because 
the  assumed  "possible  experiences"  themselves,  by 
ideally  filling  up  the  gaps  of  actual  experience,  are 
intended  to  lead  us  to  the  conception  of  one  uniform 
absolute  experience.  This  absolute  experience,  to 
which  all  facts  would  exhibit  themselves  in  their 
connection  as  uniformly  subject  to  fixed  law,  is 
conceived  as  "  possible."  But  once  again,  what  does 
that  mean  ?  Is  the  meaning  only  the  empty  tautol- 
ogy that  if  all  the  gaps  and  irregularities  of  indi- 
vidual experience  were  got  rid  of  by  means  of  con- 
necting links  and  additional  experiences,  these  gaps 
and  irregularities  would  disappear  ?  Is  the  mean- 
ing only  this,  that  if  there  were  an  absolute  expe- 


IDEALISM.  367 

rience  of  an  absolutely  regular  series  of  facts,  this 
experience  would  be  absolute  and  uniform  ?  Or 
again,  is  it  enough  to  say  that  any  possible  experi- 
ence, an  iceberg  in  the  polar  sea,  my  brain,  the  in- 
side of  yonder  book,  exists  for  me  only  as  "  my  rep- 
resentation "  ?  Of  course,  I  know  of  it  only  what  I 
conceive  of  it,  yet  I  postulate  that  it  has  some  real- 
ity beyond  my  representation.  This  postulate  is  for 
us  in  this  preliminary  discussion  a  fact,  of  which  we 
want  to  know,  not  the  justification  (for  we  still  seek 
none  higher  than  the  fact  itself  of  the  postulate), 
but  the  meaning.  I  know  of  my  fellow  only  what 
I  conceive  of  him.  Yet  I  postulate  that  my  con- 
ception of  him  is  like  him,  whereas  I  do  not  postu- 
late that  my  conception  of  a  dragon  is  like  any  real 
animal.  Just  so  I  postulate  that  my  conception  of 
the  "  possible  experience  "  called  an  atom,  or  the 
North  Pole,  is  valid  beyond  my  experience,  and  be- 
yond the  actual  experience  of  any  known  animal. 
But  I  do  not  postulate  that  my  conception  of  the 
possibility  that  future  men  might  have  wings  and 
tails  is  like  any  future  reality  whatever,  or  in  any 
way  valid  beyond  my  conception. 

Here,  then,  is  our  dilemma.  Matter  as  a  mere 
possibility  of  experience  is  more  than  any  animal's 
known  actual  experience.  And  yet  this  matter  is  to 
be  real  for  consciousness.  Nor  is  it  to  be  real  for 
consciousness  simply  in  so  far  as  the  possible  expe- 
rience is  represented  or  conceived.  The  reality  con- 
sists not  merely  in  the  representation  in  present  con- 
sciousness of  a  possible  experience,  but  in  the  added 
postulate  that  this  conception  is  valid  beyond  the 


THE   RELIGIOUS   ASPECT    OF   PHILOSOPHY. 

present  consciousness.  How  is  this  postulate  to  be 
satisfied  unless  by  assuming  an  actual  world-con- 
sciousness ? 

Let  us  sum  up  the  conditions  to  which  we  have 
here  subjected  our  theory  of  reality.  External  real- 
ity was  to  be  postulated,  not  given ;  existent  for  us 
because  we  willed  it  to  be.  To  a  portion  of  our  con- 
scious states  we  ascribed  a  validity  beyond  the  pres- 
ent. This  ascription  of  validity  was  to  constitute 
our  whole  knowledge  of  the  external  world ;  for  ex- 
ample, our  belief  in  our  own  past  and  future  states, 
in  our  neighbor's  existence,  and  in  the  existence  of 
»space,  of  matter,  and  of  inotion.  Such  an  external 
reality  was  always  conceived  as  more  or  less  com- 
pletely the  counterpart  of  our  idea  of  it,  and  hence, 
as  in  nature,  like  the  facts  of  our  consciousness. 
The  idea  that  we  at  any  moment  form  of  the  real- 
ity beyond  ourselves  was  the  expression  of  the  effort 
to  reduce  to  unity  the  present  sense-data  and  the 
present  conception  of  our  own  past  experience.  This 
reduction  to  unity  took  place  in  certain  forms.  Thus 
we  conceived  the  external  reality  as  in  space  and  in 
time,  and,  in  the  second  place,  as  in  causal  relation 
to  ourselves.  The  conception  of  causal  relations 
thus  projected  into  the  external  reality  becomes, 
when  completed,  the  conception  of  a  completely 
united  and  uniform  whole  of  facts.  We  conceived 
the  external  reality  as  subject  to  fixed  laws  of  se- 
quence, certainly  existent,  even  though,  in  our  lim- 
ited experience,  they  be  undiscoverable.  As  subject 
to  such  laws  the  external  reality  was  a  whole,  pos- 
sessing organic  unity.  But  the  external  reality  was 


IDEALISM.  369 

also  conceived  as  being  real  for  consciousness  and 
real  only  for  consciousness.  The  external  reality, 
being  an  organic  whole,  must  therefore  be  conceived 
as  the  object  of  an  absolute  experience,  to  which  all 
facts  are  known,  and  for  which  all  facts  are  subject 
to  universal  law.  But  there  thus  has  arisen  an  ob- 
scurity in  our  theory  of  reality.  The  real  is  to  be 
only  for  consciousness.  Consciousness,  however,  is 
popularly  thought  as  existent  in  our  fellow-beings. 
And  yet  the  postulated  reality  is  to  be  an  organic 
whole,  containing  series  of  facts  that  to  these  beings 
are  known  only  as  possible,  not  as  actual,  experiences. 
We  are  then  in  this  position.  To  complete  our 
theory,  we  "  want  a  hero."  Not,  to  be  sure,  a  Don 
Juan,  but  a  hypothetical  subject  of  the  "  possible 
experiences."  This  hypothetical  subject  we  have  pos- 
tulated only  as  a  hypothesis.  That  is,  its  existence 
is  not  yet  seen  to  be  a  necessary  result  even  of  the 
postulate  that  there  is  an  external  reality.  One  can 
form  other  hypotheses.  But  this  hypothesis  has  the 
advantage  of  being  simple  and  adequate.  Moreover, 
to  assume  a  consciousness  for  which  the  "possible 
experiences  "  are  present  facts,  is  to  do  no  more  than 
our  theory  seems  to  need ;  whereas  any  other  hypoth- 
esis (Berkeley's  theological  hypothesis,  for  example, 
in  its  original  form)  seems  to  assume  more  than 
is  so  far  demanded  by  our  theoretical  conception 
of  reality.  For  the  sake  then  of  expressing  one  as- 
pect of  our  fundamental  postulate,  we  suggest  what 
of  course  we  have  not  yet  proven,  that  all  the  con- 
ceived "  possible  experiences  "  are  actual  in  a  Con- 
sciousness of  which  we  so  far  suppose  nothing  but 

24 


370         THE   RELIGIOUS   ASPECT   OF   PHILOSOPHY. 

that  it  knows  these  experiences,  or  knows  facts  corre- 
sponding in  number  and  in  other  relations  to  these 
experiences.  Thus  our  idealistic  doctrine  in  this  its 
first  form  is  explained  and  defended. 


IV. 

But  all  this  hypothesis  needs  the  deeper  confirma- 
tion that  we  are  here  seeking  for  our  philosophic 
doctrines.  How  is  any  such  idealism  to  be  estab- 
lished ?  And  then,  if  established,  how  is  this  notion 
of  a  passionless  eternal  thought  to  be  transformed 
into  anything  that  can  have  a  religious  value  ?  What 
we  have  advanced  as  hypothesis,  expressing  the  pos- 
tulates of  popular  thought,  is  to  receive  such  ad- 
ditions and  such  foundation  as  shall  fit  it  to  rank 
as  a  reasonable  philosophic  theory  of  reality.  So 
far  it  has  been  a  wish  of  ours,  and  we  have  not  even 
shown  that  it  is  a  pious  wish.  Can  we  make  of  this 
All-Knower  a  religiously  interesting  Spirit?  And 
what  shall  we  do  with  his  still  vag-ue  relation  to  the 

o 

single  conscious  lives  that  are  to  get  truth  by  agree- 
ing with  him  ?  If  he  is  not  in  deepest  truth  a  power 
that  makes  them,  then  so  far  there  is  a  strange,  dark, 
inexplicable  necessity,  determining  somehow  their 
harmony  with  him.  Plainly,  though  we  find  it  best 
to  approach  our  doctrine  by  this  road,  we  have  not 
yet  reached  the  heart  of  the  mystery. 

There  is  one  haunting  thought  that  now  must  be 
permitted  to  come  for  a  time  out  of  its  hiding- 
place  and  to  confront  us.  It  says  :  "  All  this  postu- 
lating how  vain  and  worthless,  this  hope  for  a  proof 


IDEALISM.  371 

of  your  doctrine  how  absurd,  when  your  very  hy- 
pothesis shuts  up  your  human  thought  as  it  were  in 
a  cage.  As  you  state  the  relation  of  the  Universal 
Consciousness  in  which  exists  the  physical  world, 
and  the  individual  consciousness  of  the  particular 
thinker,  you  make  indeed  the  truth  of  this  individ- 
ual thought  dependent  on  its  agreement  with  that 
all-seeing  thought,  but  as  you  so  far  utterly  separate 
the  individual  thought  from  the  all-seeing  thought, 
you  make  impossible  any  sort  of  transition  from  one 
to  the  other.  This  individual  can  never  go  out  of 
himself,  to  meet  that  Infinite  thought,  and  to  see  if 
he  agrees  with  it.  You  put  the  model  all-embracing 
thought  M  in  a  relation  to  the  poor  human  thought 
A,  in  which  no  transfer  of  thought  really  takes  place, 
but  still  you  give  to  h  the  command  that  it  shall 
copy  M.  Then  you  postulate  that  which  is  by  your 
hypothesis  unknowable,  namely,  that  this  correspond- 
ence has  been  attained,  and  this  empty  postulate  you 
call  a  philosophy.  After  all,  say  what  you  will  of 
the  beauty  and  nobility  and  courage  of  postulates, 
all  this  seems  a  rather  wearisome  business.  For 
the  postulates  appear  the  vainest  of  all  things  when 
viewed  in  the  light  of  the  very  theory  that  they  are 
to  establish." 

This  objection  is  a  common -sense  one,  and  formid- 
able. But,  like  all  philosophic  skepticism,  rightly 
understood  it  will  be  our  best  friend.  Possibly,  in- 
deed, we  shall  have  to  complete  somehow  our  notion 
of  the  relation  of  the  individual  minds  to  the  all-em- 
bracing mind  ;  but  meanwhile  let  us  take  the  objec- 
tion in  its  worst  form.  What  does  it  lead  to  when 


372         THE   RELIGIOUS   ASPECT    OF   PHILOSOPHY. 

carried  to  its  fullest  extent  ?  It  leads  to  absolute 
skepticism.  It  says :  "  Perhaps  then,  after  all,  the 
relations  of  our  individual  thought  are  such  that 
there  is  possible  for  us  no  foundation  whatever  for 
our  postulates.  They  are  all  in  the  air.  Everything 
is  doubtful.  We  may  be  in  error  everywhere.  Cer- 
tainty about  the  real  world  beyond  is  unattainable." 
At  this  point  then  we  are  face  to  face  with  the  utter- 
most theoretical  skepticism.  What  shall  we  do  with 
it  ?  Why,  just  what  we  did  with  ethical  skepticism 
in  an  earlier  chapter.  We  must  receive  it  in  a 
friendly  spirit,  and  must  find  out  what  it  means  and 
assumes.  It  will,  in  fact,  transform  this  far-off  ex- 
ternal world  of  the  postulates  into  a  true  world  of 
Spiritual  Life. 

One  thing  this  skepticism  implies,  —  one  thing  so 
simple  as  generally  to  escape  notice  among  the  as- 
sumptions of  our  thought.  It  implies  that  we  can  be 
in  error  about  an  external  world.  Therefore  even 
this  extreme  skepticism  assumes  that  there  is  a  differ- 
ence between  true  and  false  statements  about  nature. 
But  now  what  is  involved  in  saying  that  a  statement 
is  either  true  or  false  ?  To  affirm,  to  deny,  to  doubt, 
all  imply  a  real  distinction  between  truth  and  error ; 
all  three  then  involve  in  common  the  assumption 
that  there  is  such  a  distinction.  That  which  is  in- 
volved alike  both  in  the  truth  and  in  the  falsity  of 
a  statement  must  itself  be  certainly  true,  and  cannot 
be  doubted.  But  what  is  this  assumption  implied  in 
the  very  assertion  that  a  statement  about  an  external 
world  is  or  may  be  false?  This  inquiry  we  must 
make  if  we  are  to  understand  our  own  skepticism. 


IDEALISM.  373 

If  we  begin  this  inquiry,  we  are  met  at  once  by  a 
very  vexatious  paradox.  There  seems  to  be  an  as- 
pect in  which  all  sincere  judgments  are  true.  Let 
us  remember  the  fable  of  the  knights  and  the  shield. 
Each  accused  the  other  of  lying.  To  each  the  oth- 
er's account  seemed  deliberate  falsehood.  Yet  each 
spoke  the  truth.  Only  neither  expressed  himself 
fully.  Each  should  have  said,  "  The  shield  as  it  ap- 
pears from  my  side  is  golden  "  or  "  is  silver."  But 
each  left  out  the  qualification.  Each  said  the  shield, 
simply.  And  hence  the  battle. 

But  this  commonplace  about  the  knights  and  the 
shield  begins  to  worry  us,  when  we  reflect  upon  it, 
by  becoming  altogether  too  general  in  scope.  Do 
we,  in  fact,  ever  make  sincere  assertions  about  things 
save  as  they  appear  to  us  ?  If  I  say,  "  Sugar  is  pleas- 
ant to  the  taste,"  and  my  neighbor  says,  "  Sugar  is 
hateful  to  the  taste,"  is  this  a  conflict  of  veracity  ? 
May  we  not  both  of  us  be  sincere  and  truthful  in 
what  we  say  ?  And  are  color-blind  men  lying  when 
they  say  that  there  is  no  difference  in  color  between 
strawberries  and  the  leaves  of  the  strawberry  plant 
when  seen  in  certain  lights  ?  But  why  is  it  not  just 
so  with  all  the  rest  of  the  things  that  people  say  ? 
If  you  are  sincere  in  what  you  say,  are  you  not  al- 
ways in  your  assertions  simply  relating  how  your 
ideas  appear  to  you  and  are  grouped  ?  If  you  say 
that  nothing  happens  without  a  cause,  do  you  not 
mean  that  what  you  conceive  by  the  word  cause  is 
conceived  by  you  as  in  connection  with  every  event 
that  you  now  have  in  mind  ?  If  you  say  that  a 
straight  line  is  the  shortest  distance  between  two 


374         THE   RELIGIOUS  ASPECT   OF   PHILOSOPHY. 

points,  do  you  not  mean  that  what  you  now  conceive 
under  the  name  straight  line  agrees  with  what  you 
now  mean  by  shortest  distance  ?  Very  well  then, 
how  can  there  be  any  direct  opposition  between  two 
sincere  statements  ?  Your  neighbor  says  that  Dar- 
winism is  absurd.  You  say  that  Darwinism  is  true. 
Where  now  is  in  fact  the  controversy  ?  He  says 
that  he  has  two  ideas  in  mind ;  namely,  an  idea  of 
what  he  chooses  to  call  Darwinism,  and  an  idea  of 
what  he  chooses  to  call  absurdity.  He  says  that 
these  two  ideas  agree,  just  as  the  knight  said  that 
his  shield  (i.  e.  the  shield  as  seen  by  him)  was  silver. 
You  say  that  your  idea  of  Darwinism  agrees  with 
your  idea  of  truth,  as  the  other  knight  said  that  the 
shield  as  seen  by  him  was  golden.  Why  fight  about 
it  ?  Thus  all  statements  appear  to  be  narratives  of 
what  goes  on  in  our  own  minds.  If  they  are  sincere, 
if  we  mean  them,  who  shall  doubt  that  they  are  all 
true  ?  Can  any  of  us  make  assertions  that  are  more 
than  clear  accounts  of  how  we  put  our  own  ideas 
together?  Why  may  not  the  thief  before  the  judge 
sincerely  say  :  "  O  judge,  my  idea  of  what  I  call 
chicken-stealing  agrees  with  my  idea  of  what  I  call 
virtue  "  And  the  judge  may  truthfully  reply :  "  O 
rascal,  my  idea  of  what  I  call  your  chicken-stealing 
agrees  with  my  idea  of  what  I  call  detestable  petty 
larceny."  Are  these  two  opinions  really  opposed,  so 
that  one  is  true,  the  other  erroneous?  Are  these 
not  rather  different  aspects  of  the  universe  ?  What 
is  truth,  moral  or  physical  ?  Is  not  every  investiga- 
tion, every  argument,  every  story,  every  anticipation, 
every  axiom,  every  delusion,  every  creed,  every  de- 


IDEALISM.  375 

nial,  just  a  mere  expression  of  a  present  union  of 
ideas  in  somebody  ?  Where  do  two  assertions  meet 
on  common  ground,  so  that  one  can  be  really  true, 
the  other  really  false  ?  Have  different  judgments, 
in  different  minds  or  made  at  different  times,  any 
real  common  object  at  all?  If  they  have  not,  how 
can  there  be  any  truth  or  falsity  at  all  ? 

This  paradox  is  wild  enough  if  you  look  at  it 
fairly.  And  yet  many  thinkers  actually  have  main- 
tained it  under  various  disguises  as  the  doctrine  of 
what  is  called  the  Total  Relativity  of  Truth.  Hav- 
ing himself  passed  through  and  long  tried  to  hold 
and  to  rationalize  this  doctrine  of  Relativity,  the 
author  has  some  right  to  say  something  in  opposition 
to  it.  What  he  has  to  say  can  be  very  briefly  put. 
In  its  paradoxical  form  as  above  stated,  the  doctrine 
may  be  made  plausible,  and  is  a  suggestive  paradox, 
but  it  is  certainly  meaningless.  If  there  is  no  real 
distinction  between  truth  and  error,  then  the  state- 
ment that  there  is  such  a  difference  is  not  really  false, 
but  only  seemingly  false.  And  then  in  truth  there 
is  the  distinction  once  more.  Try  as  you  will,  you 
come  not  beyond  the  fatal  circle.  If  it  is  wrong  to 
say  that  there  is  Absolute  Truth,  then  the  statement 
that  there  is  absolute  truth  is  itself  false.  Is  it  how- 
ever false  only  relatively,  or  is  it  false  absolutely  ? 
If  it  is  false  only  relatively,  then  it  is  not  false  abso- 
lutely. Hence  the  statement  that  it  is  false  abso- 
lutely is  itself  false.  But  false  absolutely,  or  false 
relatively  ?  And  thus  you  must  at  last  come  to  some 
statement  that  is  absolutely  false  or  absolutely  true, 
or  else  the  infinite  regress  into  which  you  are  driven 


376         THE    RELIGIOUS   ASPECT    OF   PHILOSOPHY. 

makes  the  very  distinction  between  absolute  and  rel- 
ative truth  lose  all  its  meaning,  and  your  doctrine  of 
total  Relativity  will  also  lose  meaning.  "  No  abso- 
lute truth  exists,"  —  can  you  say  this  if  you  want  to  ? 
At  least  you  must  add,  "  No  absolute  truth  exists 
save  this  truth  itself,  that  no  absolute  truth  exists." 
Otherwise  your  statement  has  no  sense.  But  if  you 
admit  this  truth,  then  there  is  in  fact  an  absolute 
distinction  between  truth  and  error. 

And  when  we  here  talk  of  an  "  absolute  "  distinc- 
tion between  truth  and  error,  we  mean  merely  a 
"real"  distinction  between  truth  and  error.  And 
this  real  distinction  the  fiercest  partisan  of  relativ- 
ity admits  ;  for  does  he  not  after  all  argue  for  rela- 
tivity against  "  absolutists,"  holding  that  he  is  really 
right,  and  they  really  wrong. 

Yet,  sure  though  we  feel  of  the  distinction,  the 
paradox  and  its  plausibility  remain.  How  have 
different  judgments,  made  at  different  times,  any 
real  common  object  at  all?  If  they  have  none, 
then  where  is  the  postulated  distinction  of  truth  and 
error  ?  What  shall  we  do  with  our  paradox  ?  In 
what  sense  can  a  private  opinion  of  one  man  be  a 
genuine  error  ?  There  must  be  such  a  thing  as  real 
genuine  error,  or  else  even  our  very  skepticism  fails 
to  have  the  least  sense,  and  we  fall  back  into  the 
utterly  irrational  chaos  of  not  being  able  with  truth 
to  say  whether  we  doubt  that  we  are  doubting.  But 
yet  how  shall  we  explain  the  possibility  of  error  ? 
For  here  is  an  unique  and  fundamental  postulate. 

The  next  chapter  shall  be  devoted  to  a  more  special 
and  detailed  study  of  this  problem.  But  already 


IDEALISM.  377 

we  shall  venture  to  suggest  our  solution.  It  is  one 
that  needs  possibly  some  little  consideration,  and  the 
reader  will  pardon  us  if  we  already  state  it,  although 
we  shall  repeat  it  in  another  form  hereafter.  In 
fact,  it  is  a  critical  matter  for  our  whole  discussion. 
Here,  in  fact,  will  be  the  point  where  we  shall  pass 
from  idealism  as  a  bare  hypothesis,  expressing  pos- 
tulates, to  idealism  as  a  philosophic  doctrine,  rest- 
ing upon  the  deepest  possible  foundation,  namely, 
on  the  very  difference  between  truth  and  error  itself. 
Our  logical  problem  will  become  for  us  a  treasure- 
house  of  ideal  truth.  But  just  now  we  make  only  a 
suggestion,  to  which  as  yet  we  can  compel  no  agree- 
ment. 

When  one  says  even  the  perfectly  commonplace 
thing  that  not  all  assertions  are  equally  true,  that  is, 
that  not  all  of  them  agree  with  the  objects  with  which 
they  mean  to  agree,  he  really  makes  an  assumption 
upon  which  all  thinking,  all  controversy,  all  the 
postulates  that  we  previously  studied,  all  science,  all 
morality  depend  ;  and,  as  we  maintain,  this  assump- 
tion is :  That  the  agreement  or  the  disagreement 
of  his  judgments  with  their  intended  objects  exists 
and  has  meaning  for  an  actual  thought,  a  con- 
sciousness, to  which  both  these  related  terms  are 
present,  namely,  both  the  judgment  and  the  object 
wherewith  it  is  to  agree.  So  that,  if  my  thought 
has  objects  outside  of  it  with  which  it  can  agree  or 
disagree,  those 'objects  and  that  agreement  can  have 
meaning,  can  be  possible,  only  if  there  is  a  thought 
that  includes  both  my  thought  and  the  object  where- 
with my  thought  is  to  agree.  This  inclusive  thought 


378         THE  RELIGIOUS   ASPECT  OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

must  be  related  to  my  thought  and  its  objects,  as 
my  thought  is  related  to  the  various  partial  thoughts 
that  it  includes  and  reduces  to  unity  in  any  one  of 
my  complex  assertions.  For  only  by  some  such 
unity  as  this  can  this  higher  thought  compare  my 
judgment  with  its  object,  and  so  constitute  the 
relation  that  is  implied  in  the  truth  or  in  the  error 
of  my  thought.  So,  in  the  commonplace  assump- 
tion that  a  statement  of  mine  can  agree  or  can  fail 
to  agree  with  its  real  object,  when  this  object  is 
wholly  outside  my  thought,  in  this  assumption,  with- 
out which  you  can  make  no  rational  statement,  is 
contained  implicitly  the  assumption  that  all  reality, 
spiritual  and  material,  is  present  in  its  true  nature 
to  an  all-embracing,  intelligent  thought,  of  which 
mine  is  simply  one  subordinate  part  or  element. 
In  truth,  as  we  shall  come  to  see,  regarded  in  itself, 
my  mind  can  be  concerned  only  with  its  own  ideas. 
That  is  the  view  of  all  so-called  subjective  idealism. 
But  if  my  mind  can  be  concerned  only  with  its  own 
ideas,  then  sincerity  and  truth  are  identical,  truth 
and  error  will  be  alike  impossible.  What  I  talk 
about  will  be  my  ideas  ;  their  objects  will  be  them- 
selves other  ideas  of  mine,  and  meaning  only  these 
ideas  when  I  make  assertions,  I  cannot  fail  to  make 
correct  assertions  about  these,  the  objects  that  I 
mean.  But  thus  controversy,  progress  towards 
truth,  failure  to  get  truth,  error,  refutation,  yes, 
doubt  itself,  will  all  cease  to  have  any  meaning 
whatsoever.  But  if  my  thought  is  related  to  a 
higher  thought,  even  as  the  parts  of  one  of  my 
thoughts  are  related  to  the  whole  thought,  then 


IDEALISM.  379 

truth  and  error,  as  objective  truth  and  objective 
error,  are  possible,  since  my  thought  and  its  object, 
both  as  I  think  this  object  and  as  it  is,  are  together 
in  the  universal  thought,  of  which  they  form  ele- 
ments, and  in  which  they  live  and  move  and  have 
their  being.  As  my  thoughts  have  a  unity  more  or 
less  complete  in  themselves,  so  all  thoughts  and  ob- 
jects must  be  postulated  as  in  unity  in  that  thought 
for  which  is  the  whole  universe.  As  I  can  say  to 
myself  with  solely  subjective  truth,  .This  line  that 
I  mentally  picture  is  in  truth  shorter  for  me  than 
that,  and  to  say  otherwise  is  to  speak  falsely  ;  even 
so  my  statement,  All  straight  lines  are  in  all  cases 
shortest  lines  between  their  extremities,  is  true  ob- 
jectively, and  its  contradictory  false  only  in  case 
both  the  world  of  possible  straight  lines  and  iny 
thoughts  about  this  world  are  known  to  a  higher 
thought,  are  in  fact  members  of  a  higher  thought, 
which,  comparing  what  I  cannot  compare,  making 
a  synthesis  of  what  is  to  me  separate,  unifying  what 
is  for  me  diverse,  finds  my  thought  really  true  or 
false. 

This  is  the  barest  outline  of  a  proof  by  which,  in 
the  next  chapter,  we  shall  try  to  reach  the  position 
which  some  call  absolute  or  objective  idealism.  We 
shall  find  this  theory  as  just  set  forth  a  necessary 
assumption,  which  we  shall  make  because  we  want 
to  think  clearly,  and  because  we  find  nothing  else 
that  even  suggests  an  answer  to  the  critical  questions 
that  trouble  us  as  to  the  nature  of  thought.  We 
shall  not  substitute  this  conception  of  reality  for  the 
scientific  conception.  On  the  contrary,  this  concep- 


380         THE   RELIGIOUS  ASPECT   OF   PHILOSOPHY. 

tion  will  merely  undertake,  presupposing  the  scien- 
tific spirit,  to  include  the  scientific  conception  of 
the  world  in  one  that  will,  as  a  whole,  better  satisfy 
the  needs  of  this  scientific  spirit  itself.  Our  theory 
will  give  us  no  a  priori  account  of  facts  of  expe- 
rience, but  a  theory  of  that  which  makes  experience, 
as  a  whole,  possible.  This  theory,  which  we  offer  as 
the  one  rational  account  of  the  nature  of  truth,  is 
the  doctrine  that  the  world  is  in  and  for  a  thought, 
all-embracing,  all-knowing,  universal,  for  which  are 
all  relations  and  all  truth,  a  thought  that  estimates 
perfectly  our  imperfect  and  halting  thoughts,  a 
thought  in  which  and  for  which  are  we  all.  No 
other  view,  as  we  shall  affirm,  offers  any  chance  of 
a  philosophy,  nor  any  hope  of  even  a  rational  sci- 
entific notion  of  things. 

The  reader  may  be  impatient  to  see,  in  detail,  the 
argument  by  which  we  undertake  to  establish  such  a 
thesis  as  the  foregoing.  Of  that  argument  he  shall 
get  enough  in  another  chapter.  But  we  ask  him  to 
wait  yet  a  moment,  while  we  hint  to  him  the  conse- 
quences, for  our  religious  theory,  that  will  flow  from 
our  hypothesis  when  we  have  got  it  more  certainly 
in  our  minds. 

The  ambiguous  relation  of  the  conscious  individ- 
uals to  the  universal  thought  in  the  foregoing  first 
statement  of  our  idealism,  will  be  decided  in  the 
sense  of  their  inclusion,  as  elements,  in  the  universal 
thought.  They  will  indeed  not  become  "  things  in 
the  dream "  of  any  other  person  than  themselves, 
but  their  whole  reality,  just  exactly  as  it  is  in  them, 
will  be  found  to  be  but  a  fragment  of  a  higher 


IDEALISM.  381 

reality.  This  reality  will  be  no  Power,  nor  will  it 
produce  the  individuals  by  dreaming  of  them,  but 
it  will  complete  the  existence  that  in  them,  as  sep- 
arate beings,  has  no  rational  completeness.  This 
will  be  our  first  result. 

Then  will  follow  other  thoughts.  In  so  far  as 
there  is  any  objective  truth  in  moral  conceptions, 
this  truth  is  eternally  known  to  this  all-embracing 
thought.  If  there  be  moral  or  immoral  acts,  they 
are  forever  known  and  judged  in  and  by  this  all- 
embracing  conscious  thought.  And  thus  we  shall 
have  found  Job's  longed-for,  perfect,  all -knowing 
judge.  "  He  knoweth  the  way  that  I  take."  Here 
is  an  absolute  estimate,  objectively  present  in  the 
world,  an  estimate  of  all  your  good  and  evil  deeds. 
You  are  a  part  of  the  universal  life.  Your  thoughts 
are  parts  of  the  whole.  Your  acts  form  an  element 
in  the  universe  that  the  great  Judge  knows.  All  of 
you  then  is  known  and  justly  estimated  by  the  ab- 
solute thought  that  embraces  all  possible  truth,  and 
for  whom  are  all  relations,  present,  past,  and  future 
of  all  possible  beings,  acts,  and  thoughts  in  all  places. 
If  there  be  any  virtue,  this  virtue  is  known  to  the 
infinite  thought  of  the  universe.  If  there  be  any 
vice,  that  vice  is  estimated,  in  all  its  infinite  base- 
ness, by  the  infinite  consciousness.  Inasmuch  as  ye 
do  good  unto  the  least  of  these,  ye  do  it  with  the 
universal  consciousness  as  onlooker;  your  work  is 
all  accomplished  in  the  presence  of  the  Absolute. 

With  this  truth  before  us,  we  shall  be  ready  to 
leave  unsolved  our  problems  about  this  or  that 
Power,  about  this  or  that  future  state,  about  the 


382        THE  RELIGIOUS   ASPECT   OF   PHILOSOPHY. 

fallen  angels,  or  about  the  historical  justification  of 
God's  ways.  The  world  of  Divine  Life  will  be  in 
deepest  truth  not  a  Power  at  all,  but  the  Infinite 
Knowing  One,  for  whom  are  all  the  powers,  but  who 
is  above  them  all,  beyond  them  all,  —  no  striving 
good  principle  that  cannot  get  realized  in  a  wicked 
world,  but  an  absolute  Judge  that  perfectly  estimates 
the  world.  In  the  contemplation  of  this  truth  we 
may  find  a  religious  comfort. 

And  then,  by  all  this,  we  shall  make  the  postu- 
lates of  our  previous  chapter  appear  in  a  new  light. 
The  postulates,  we  said,  express  the  conditions 
under  which  we  are  determined  to  do  our  work. 
They  are  expressions  of  the  spirit  of  courageous 
devotion  to  the  highest.  They  find  and  can  find  no 
perfect  verification  in  experience.  They  dwell  in 
part  on  the  unseen.  But  they  do  not  resist  verifi- 
cation, if  any  can  be  offered  from  a  higher  source. 
But  this,  our  new  doctrine,  if  we  truly  get  to  it, 
will  offer  them  their  higher  verification.  Their 
office  will  not  thereby  be  vacated  or  abolished. 
They  will  forever  remain  the  maxims  of  our  work. 
But  they  will  no  longer  be  just  leaps  in  the  dark. 
We  shall  see  that  when  science  assumes  rationality, 
and  religion  assumes  goodness,  as  at  the  heart  of 
things,  they  have  neither  of  them  acted  vainly.  We 
shall  then  have  reason  to  go  on  assuming  both,  and 
to  regulate  our  lives  accordingly.  Faith  of  some 
sort  will  continue  to  be  our  meat  and  drink ;  but  it 
will  be  faith  with  a  philosophical  foundation. 

The  reader  will  pardon  us  for  having  detained 
him  so  long  in  the  study  of  idealism  as  a  bare  postu- 


IDEALISM.  383 

late,  when  we  have  a  more  serious  doctrine  behind. 
The  inveterate  prejudices  and  misunderstandings  to 
which  idealistic  theories  fall  prey,  furnish  our  excuse 
for  trying  to  reconcile  ourselves  to  an  imperfect  form 
of  idealism  as  a  mere  postulate,  before  going  on  to 
set  forth  an  absolute  idealism  as  a  demonstrable 
theory. 


CHAPTER  XL 

THE   POSSIBILITY   OF   ERROR. 

On  ne  sert  dignement  la  philosophie  qu'avec  le  m&ne  feu  qu'on  sent 
pour  une  maitresse.  —  ROUSSEAU,  Nouvelle  Heloise. 

WE  have  before  us  our  theorem,  and  an  outline 
of  its  proof.  We  are  here  to  expand  this  argument. 
We  have  some  notion  of  the  magnitude  of  the  is- 
sues that  are  at  stake.  We  had  found  ourselves 
baffled  in  our  search  for  a  certainty  by  numerous 
difficulties.  We  had  found  only  one  way  remaining 
so  far  quite  clear.  That  was  the  way  of  postulat- 
ing what  the  moral  consciousness  seems  to  demand 
about  the  world  beyond  experience.  For  many 
thinkers  since  Kant,  that  way  has  seemed  in  fact 
the  only  one.  They  live  in  a  world  of  action. 
"  Doubt,"  they  say,  "  clouds  all  theory.  One  must 
act  as  if  the  world  were  the  supporter  of  our  moral 
demands.  One  must  have  faith.  One  must  make 
the  grand  effort,  one  must  risk  all  for  the  sake  of 
the  great  prize.  If  the  world  is  against  us,  still  we 
will  not  admit  the  fact  until  we  are  crushed.  If  the 
cold  reality  cares  naught  for  our  moral  efforts,  so  be 
it  when  we  come  to  know  the  fact,  but  meanwhile 
we  will  act  as  if  legions  of  angels  were  ready  to  sup- 
port our  demand  for  whatever  not  our  selfish  inter- 
est, but  the  great  interest  of  the  Good,  requires." 


THE  POSSIBILITY   OF  ERROR.  385 

Such  is  the  view  of  the  men  whose  religion  is  founded 
upon  a  Postulate. 

We,  too,  felt  that  such  faith  is  religious.  We 
were  willing  to  accept  it,  if  nothing  better  could  be 
found.  But  we  were  not  content  with  it.  Life  has 
its  unheroic  days,  when  mere  postulates  fail  us.  At 
such  times  we  grow  weary  of  toiling,  evil  seems  ac- 
tually triumphant,  and,  worse  than  all,  the  sense 
that  there  really  is  any  perfect  goodness  yet  unat- 
tained,  that  there  is  any  worth  or  reason  in  our 
fight  for  goodness,  seems  to  desert  us.  And  then  it 
will  indeed  be  well  if  we  can  get  for  ourselves  some- 
thing more  and  better  than  mere  postulates.  If  we 
cannot,  we  shall  not  seek  to  hide  the  fact.  Better 
eternal  despondency  than  a  deliberate  lie  about  our 
deepest  thoughts  and  their  meaning.  If  we  are  not 
honest,  at  least  in  our  philosophy,  then  are  we  wholly 
base.  To  try  once  more  is  not  dishonest. 

So  we  did  make  the  effort,  and,  in  the  last  chap- 
ter, we  sketched  a  result  that  seemed  nearly  within 
our  reach.  An  unexpected  result  this,  because  it 
springs  from  the  very  heart  of  skepticism  itself. 
We  doubted  to  the  last  extremity.  We  let  every- 
thing go,  and  then  all  of  a  sudden  we  seemed  to  find 
that  we  could  not  lose  one  priceless  treasure,  try  as 
we  would.  Our  wildest  doubt  assumed  this,  namely, 
that  error  is  possible.  And  so  our  wildest  doubt  as- 
sumed the  actual  existence  of  those  conditions  that 
make  error  possible.  The  conditions  that  determine 
the  logical  possibility  of  error  must  themselves  be 
absolute  truth,  that  was  the  treasure  that  remained 
to  us  amid  all  our  doubts.  And  how  rich  that  treas- 

25 


386         THE   RELIGIOUS   ASPECT    OF   PHILOSOPHY. 

ure  is,  we  dimly  saw  in  the  last  discussion.  That 
dim  insight  we  must  now  try  to  make  clearer.  Per- 
haps our  previous  discussion  has  shown  us  that  the 
effort  is  worth  making. 

Yet  of  one  thing  the  reader  shall  be  warned.  The 
path  that  we  travel  is  hereabouts  very  thorny  and 
stony.  It  is  a  path  of  difficult  philosophical  inves- 
tigation. Nobody  ought  to  follow  it  who  does  not 
desire  to.  We  hope  that  the  reader  will  skip  the 
whole  of  this  chapter  unless  he  wants  to  find  even 
more  of  dullness  than  the  rest  of  this  sleepy^  book 
has  discovered  to  him.  For  us,  too,  the  arid  way 
would  seem  hard,  were  it  not  for  the  precious  prize 
at  the  end  of  it. 

I. 

The  story  of  the  following  investigation  shall  first 
be  very  briefly  told.  The  author  had  long  sought,  es- 
pecially in  the  discussions  of  Kant's  "  Kritik,"  and 
in  the  books  of  the  post-Kantians,  for  help  in  see- 
ing the  ultimate  principles  that  lie  at  the  basis  of 
knowledge.  He  had  found  the  old  and  well-known 
troubles.  Experience  of  itself  can  give  no  certainty 
^about  general  principles.  We  must  therefore,  said 
Kant,  bring  our  own  principles  with  us  to  experi- 
ence. We  know  then  of  causation,  because  causa- 
tion is  a  fundamental  principle  of  our  thought, 
whereby  we  set  our  experience  to  rights.  And  so 
long  as  we  think,  we  shall  think  into  experience  the 
connection  of  cause  and  effect,  which  otherwise  would 
not  be  there.  But  hereupon  the  questions  arose  that 
have  so  often  been  asked  of  Kant  and  the  Kantians. 


THE  POSSIBILITY   OF   EREOR.  .  38T 

Why  just  these  principles  and  no  others  ?  "  That 
is  inexplicable,"  replies  Kant.  Very  well,  then, 
suppose  we  give  up  applying  to  experience  those  ar- 
bitrary principles  of  ours.  Suppose  we  choose  to 
stop  thinking  of  experience  as  causally  connected. 
What  then  ?  "  But  you  cannot  stop,"  says  Kant, 
"  Your  thought,  being  what  it  is,  must  follow  this 
one  fashion  forever."  Nay,  we  reply,  how  knowest 
thou  that,  Master  ?  Why  may  not  our  thought  get 
a  new  fashion  some  day  ?  And  then  what  is  now 
a  necessary  principle,  for  example,  that  every  event 
has  a  cause,  would  become  unnecessary  or  even  non- 
sensical. Do  we  then  know  a  priori  that  our  a 
priori  principles  must  always  remain  such  ?  If  so, 
how  come  we  by  this  new  knowledge  ? 

So  Kant  leaves  us  still  uncertain  about  any  fun- 
damental principles  upon  which  a  sure  knowledge 
of  the  world  can  be  founded. 

Let  us,  then,  examine  a  little  deeper.  Are  there 
any  certain  judgments  possible  at  all?  If  one  is 
skeptical  in  a  thorough  -  going  way,  as  the  author 
tried  to  be,  he  is  apt  to  reach,  through'  an  effort  to 
revise  Kant's  view,  a  position  something  like  the  fol- 
lowing, —  a  provisional  position  of  course,  but  one 
that  results  from  the  effort  to  accept  nothing  with- 
out criticism  :  "  Kant's  result  is  that  our  judgments 
about  the  real  world  are  founded  on  an  union  of 
thought  and  sense,  thought  giving  the  appearance  of 
necessity  to  our  judgment,  sense  giving  the  material. 
The  necessity  of  any  judgment  amounts  then  only  to 
what  may  be  summed  up  in  the  words  :  So  the  pres- 
ent union  of  thought  and  sense  makes  things  ap- 


388         THE   RELIGIOUS   ASPECT    OF   PHILOSOPHY. 

pear.     If  either  thought  or  sense  altered  its  charac- 
Iter,  truth  would  alter.     Hence  every  sincere  judg- 
j  ment  is  indeed  true  for  the  moment  in  which  it  is 
I  made,  but  not  necessarily  true  for  other  moments. 
/  We  only  postulate  that  it  is  true  for  other  moments." 
!  "  And  so,"   to  continue  this  view,   "  it  is  only  by 
I  means  of  postulates  that  our  thought  even  seems  to 
have  any  unity  from  moment  to  moment.     We  live 
in  the  present.     If  our  thought  has  other  truth  or 
falsity  than  this,  we  do  not  know  it.     Past  and  fu- 
ture exist  not  for  this  present.     They  are  only  pos- 
tulated.    Save  as  postulated,  they  have  no  present 
meaning." 

When  he  held  and  expressed  this  view,  the  author 
is  free  to  admit  that  he  was  not  always  clear  whether 
he  ought  to  call  it  the  doctrine  of  the  relativity  of 
truth  or  not.  It  might  have  avoided  the  absurdities 
of  total  relativity  by  taking  form  as  a  doctrine  that 
the  present  moment's  judgment  is  really  true  or 
false,  for  a  real  past  and  future,  but  that  we,  being 
limited  to  present  moments,  can  never  compare  our 
judgments  with  reality  to  find  whether  our  judg- 
ments are  true  or  false.  But  although  this  inter- 
pretation is  possible,  this  view  often  did  express  it- 
self for  the  author  as  the  doctrine  of  the  total  rela- 
tivity of  truth.  The  latter  doctrine  to  be  sure  has 
no  real  meaning,  but  the  author  used  with  many 
others  to  fancy  that  it  had. 

To  apply  the  view  to  the  case  of  causal  relations. 
"  We  continually  postulate,"  the  author  used  to 
point  out,  "  we  demand,  without  being  able  to  prove 
it,  that  nature  in  future  shall  be  uniform."  So, 


THE   POSSIBILITY   OF   ERROR.  389 

carrying  out  this  thought,  the  author  used  to  say : 
"  In  fact  future  nature  is  not  given  to  us,  just  as  the 
past  is  not  given  to  us.  Sense-data  and  thought 
unite  at  every  instant  afresh  to  form  a  new  judgment 
and  a  new  postulate.  Only  in  the  present  has  any 
judgment  evident  validity.  And  our  postulate  of 
causal  relation  is  just  a  way  of  looking  at  this  world 
of  conceived  past  and  future  data.  Such  postulates 
avoid  being  absurd  efforts  to  regulate  independent 
facts  of  sense,  because,  and  only  because,  we  have  in 
experience  no  complete  series  of  facts  of  sense  at  all, 
only  from  moment  to  moment  single  facts,  about 
which  we  make  single  judgments.  All  the  rest  we 
must  postulate  or  else  do  without  them."  Thus  one 
reaches  a  skepticism  as  nearly  complete  as  is  pos- 
sible to  any  one  with  earnest  activity  of  thought  in 
him.  From  moment  to  moment  one  can  be  sure  of 
each  moment.  All  else  is  postulate. 

From  the  depths  of  this  imperfectly  defined  skep- 
ticism, which  seemed  to  him  provisionally  the  only 
view  he  could  adopt,  the  author  escaped  only  by  ask- 
ing the  one  question  more  :  "If  everything  beyond 
the  present  is  doubtful,  then  how  can  even  that  doubt 
be  possible  ?  "  With  this  question  that  bare  relativ- 
ity of  the  present  moment  is  given  up.  What  are 
the  conditions  that  make  doubt  logically  intelligible  ? 
These  conditions  really  transcend  the  present  mo- 
ment. Plainly  doubt  implies  that  the  statement 
doubted  may  be  false.  So  here  we  have  at  least  one 
supposed  general  truth,  namely,  "  All  but  the  im- 
mediate content  of  the  present  moment's  judgment, 
being  doubtful,  we  may  be  in  error  about  it."  But 


390         THE   RELIGIOUS   ASPECT    OF   PHILOSOPHY. 

what  then  is  an  error?  This  becomes  at  once  a 
problem  of  exciting  interest.  Attacking  it,  the  au- 
thor was  led  through  the  wilderness  of  the  following 
argument. 

II. 

Yet  before  we  undertake  this  special  examination 
of  the  nature  of  error,  the  reader  must  pardon  us 
for  adding  yet  another  explanatory  word.  The  diffi- 
culty of  the  whole  discussion  will  lie  in  the  fact  that 
we  shall  be  studying  the  possibility  of  the  plainest 
and  most  familiar  of  commonplaces.  Common  sense 
hates  to  do  such  things,  because  common  sense  thinks 
that  the  whole  matter  is  sure  from  the  outset.  Com- 
mon sense  is  willing  to  ask  whether  God  exists,  but 
unwilling  to  inquire  how  it  is  possible  that  there  can 
exist  an  error  about  anything.  But  foreseeing  that 
something  is  to  follow  from  all  this,  we  must  beg 
common  sense  to  be  patient.  We  have  not  the 
shadow  of  doubt  ourselves  about  the  possibility  of 
error.  That  is  the  steadfast  rock  on  which  we  build. 
Our  inquiry,  ultra-skeptical  as  it  may  at  moments 
seem,  is  into  the  question  :  How  is  the  error  possi- 
ble ?  Or,  in  other  words  :  What  is  an  error  ?  Now 
there  can  be  little  doubt  that  common  sense  is  not 
ready  with  any  general  answer  to  such  a  question. 
Error  is  a  word  with  many  senses.  By  error  we 
often  mean  just  a  statement  that  arouses  our  antipa- 
thy. Yet  we  all  admit  upon  reflection,  that  our  an- 
tipathy can  neither  make  nor  be  used  to  define  real 
error.  Adam  Smith  declares,  with  common  sense  on 
his  side,  in  his  "  Theory  of  the  Moral  Sentiments,"  l 
i  Part  L,  sect,  i.,  chap,  iii.,  near  the  beginning. 


THE   POSSIBILITY   OF  ERROR.  391 

that :  "To  approve  or  disapprove  of  the  opinions  of 
others  is  acknowledged,  by  everybody,  to  mean  no 
more  than  to  observe  their  agreement  or  disagree- 
ment with  our  own."  Yet  no  one  would  accept  as  a 
definition  of  error  the  statement  that :  Error  is  any 
opinion  that  I  personally  do  not  like.  Error  has 
thus  a  very  puzzling  character.  For  common  sense 
will  readily  admit  that  if  a  statement  is  erroneous, 
it  must  appear  erroneous  to  every  "  right  mind  "  that 
is  in  possession  of  the  facts.  Hence  the  personal 
taste  of  one  man  is  not  enough  to  define  it.  Else 
there  might  be  as  many  sorts  of  error  as  there  are 
minds.  It  is  only  the  "  right  mind  "  whose  personal 
taste  shall  decide  what  is  an  error  in  any  particular 
case.  But  what  then  is  a  normal  mind  ?  Who  is  the 
right-minded  judge  ?  There  seems  to  be  danger  that 
common  sense  shall  run  at  this  point  into  an  infinite 
regress.  I  say  :  That  opinion  is  an  error.  What 
do  I  mean  ?  Do  I  mean  that  I  do  not  like  that 
opinion  ?  Nay,  I  mean  more.  I  mean  that  I  ought 
not  to  like  or  to  accept  it.  Why  plight  I  not?  Be- 
cause the  ideally  right-minded  person  would  not, 
seeing  the  given  facts,  hold  that  opinion  about  them. 
But  who  is  the  ideally  right-minded  person  ?  Well, 
common  sense  may  answer,  It  is  my  ideal  person, 
the  right-minded  man  as  I  conceive  him.  But  why 
is  my  ideal  the  true  ideal  ?  Because  I  like  it  ?  — 
Nay,  because,  to  the  ideal  judge,  that  kind  of  mind 
would  seem  the  ideal.  But  who  is  the  ideal  judge  ? 
And  so  common  sense  is  driven  from  point  to  point, 
unable  to  get  to  anything  definite. 

So  much,  then,  to  show  in  general  that  common 


392         THE   RELIGIOUS  ASPECT   OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

sense  does  not  know  what  an  error  is,  and  needs 
more  light  upon  the  subject.  Let  common  sense  not 
disturb  us,  then,  in  our  further  search,  by  the  con- 
stant and  indignant  protest  that  error  must  some- 
how exist,  and  that  doubt  on  that  subject  is  nonsense. 
Nobody  has  any  doubts  on  that  subject.  We  ask 
only  how  error  exists  and  how  it  can  exist. 

For  the  rest,  what  follows  is  not  any  effort  to 
demonstrate  in  fair  and  orderly  array,  from  any  one 
principle  or  axiom,  what  must  be  the  nature  of  er- 
ror, but  to  use  every  and  any  device  that  may  offer 
itself,  general  analysis,  special  example,  comparison 
and  contrast  of  cases,  —  anything  that  shall  lead  us 
to  the  insight  into  what  an  error  is  and  implies. 
For  at  last,  immediate  insight  must  decide. 

We  shall  study  our  problem  thus.  We  shall 
take  either  some  accepted  definition  of  error,  or 
some  special  class  of  cases,  and  we  shall  ask :  How 
is  error  in  that  case,  or  in  accordance  with  that  defi- 
nition, possible  ?  Since  error  plainly  is  possible  in 
some  way,  we  sh^Jl  have  only  to  inquire :  What  are 
the  logical  conditions  that  make  it  possible  ?  We 
shall  take  up  the  ordinary  suppositions  that  com- 
mon sense  seems  to  make  about  what  here  deter- 
mines the  possibility  of  error.  We  shall  show  that 
these  suppositions  are  inadequate.  Then  the  result 
will  be  that,  on  the  ordinary  suppositions,  error 
would  be  impossible.  But  that  result  would  be 
absurd,  if  these  were  the  only  possible  suppositions. 
Hence  the  ordinary  suppositions  must  somehow  be 
supplemented.  When,  therefore,  we  seem  to  say  in 
the  following  that  error  is  impossible,  we  shall  mean 


THE   POSSIBILITY   OF  ERROR.  393 

only,  impossible  under  the  ordinary  suppositions  of 
common  sense.  What  supplement  we  need  to  these 
suppositions,  our  argument  will  show  us.  In  sum 
we  shall  find  the  state  of  the  case  to  be  this  :  Com- 
mon sense  regards  an  assertion  as  true  or  as  false 
apart  from  any  other  assertion  or  thought,  and  solely 
in  reference^  to  its  own  object.  For  common  sense 
each  judgment,  as  a  separate  creation,  stands  out 
alone,  looking  at  its  object,  and  trying  to  agree  with 
it.  If  it  succeeds,  we  have  truth.  If  the  judgment 
fails,  we  have  error.  But,  as  we  shall  find,  this  view 
of  common  sense  is  unintelligible.  A  judgment  can- 
not have  an  object  and  fail  to  agree  therewith,  un- 
less this  judgment  is  part  of  an  organism  of  thought. 
Alone,  as  a  separate  fact,  a  judgment  has  no  intelli- 
gible object  beyond  itself.  And  therefore  the  pre- 
suppositions of  common  sense  must  be  supplemented 
or  else  abandoned.  Either  then  there  is  no  error, 
or  else  judgments  are  true  or  false  only  in  reference 
jto  a  higher  inclusive  thought,  which  they  presuppose, 
and  which  must,  in  th<TTast  analysis,  be  assumed  as 
Infinite  and  all-inclusive.  This  result  we  shall  reach 
by  no  mystical  insight,  by  no  revelation,  nor  yet  by 
any  mere  postulate  such  as  we  used  in  former  dis- 
cussions, but  by  a  simple,  dry  analysis  of  the  mean- 
ing of  our  own  thought. 

The  most  formidable  opponent  of  our  argument 
will  be,  after  all,  however,  not  common  sense,  but 
that  thought  mentioned  in  the  last  chapter,  —  the 
thought  that  may  try  to  content  itself  with  some- 
what plausible  jargon,  and  to  say  that :  "  There  is 
no  real  difference  between  truth  and  error  at  all, 


394         THE   RELIGIOUS   ASPECT   OF   PHILOSOPHY. 

only  a  kind  of  opinion  or  consensus  of  men  about 
a  conventional  distinction  between  what  they  choose 
to  call  truth  and  what  they  choose  to  call  error" 
This  view,  as  the  author  has  confessed,  he  once  tried 
to  hold.  Still  this  meaningless  doctrine  of  relativ- 
ity is  not  the  same  as  the  view  that  contents  itself 
with  the  postulates  before  discussed.  That  view 
might  take,  and  for  the  author  at  one  time  did  take, 
the  possible  and  intelligible  form  thus  expressible : 
"  Truth  and  error,  though  really  distinguishable, 
are  for  us  distinguished  only  through  our  postu- 
lates, in  so  far  as  relates  to  past  and  future  time*' 
Such  views,  while  not  denying  that  there  is  real 
truth,  despair  of  the  attainability  for  us  of  more  than 
momentary  truth.  But  the  doctrine  of  Total  Rela- 
tivity, this  view  above  expressed,  differs  from  gen- 
uine skepticism.  It  tries  to  put  even  skepticism  to 
rest,  by  declaring  the  opinion,  that  there  is  error,  to 
be  itself  an  error.  This  is  not  merely  a  moderate 
expression  of  human  limitations,  but  jargon,  and 
therefore  formidable,  because  jargon  is  always  unan- 
swerable. When  the  famous  Cretan  declared  all 
statements  made  by  Cretans  to  be  in  all  cases  lies, 
his  declaration  was  hard  to  refute,  because  it  was 
such  honest  -  seeming  nonsense.  Even  so  with  the 
statement  that  declares  the  very  existence  of  error 
to  be  an  erroneously  believed  fancy.  No  consensus 
of  men  can  make  an  error  erroneous.  We  can  only 
find  or  commit  an  error,  not  create  it.  When  we 
commit  an  error,  we  say  what  was  an  error  already. 
If  our  skeptical  view  in  previous  chapters  seemed  to 
regard  truth  and  error  as  mere  objects  of  our  postu- 


THE   POSSIBILITY   OF   ERROR.  895 

lates,  that  was  only  because,  to  our  skepticism,  the 
real  truth,  the  real  error,  about  any  real  past  and 
future,  seemed  beyond  our  reach,  so  that  we  had 
to  content  ourselves  with  postulates.  But  that  real 
error  exists  is  absolutely  indubitable. 

This  being  the  case,  it  is  evident  that  even  the 
most  thorough-going  skepticism  is  full  of  assump- 
tions. If  I  say,  "  There  may  be  no  money  in  that 
purse  yonder,"  I  assume  the  existence  of  the  purse 
yonder  in  order  to  make  just  that  particular  doubt 
possible.  Of  course,  however,  just  that  doubt  may 
be  rendered  meaningless  by  the  discovery  of  the 
actual  non-existence  of  that  particular  purse.  If 
there  is  no  purse  yonder,  then  it  is  nonsensical  either 
to  affirm  or  to  deny  that  it  contains  money.  And 
so  if  the  purse  of  which  I  speak  is  an  hallucination 
of  mine,  then  the  doubt  about  whether,  as  an  actu- 
ally existent  purse,  it  has  money  in  it,  is  deprived 
of  sense.  My  real  error  in  that  case  would  lie  in 
supposing  the  purse  itself  to  exist.  If,  however,  I 
abandon  the  first  doubt,  and  go  on  to  doubt  the  real 
existence  of  the  purse,  I  equally  assume  a  room,  or 
some  other  environment,  or  at  all  events  the  universe, 
as  existent,  in  order  to  give  sense  to  my  question 
whether  the  purse  has  any  being  in  this  environment 
or  in  this  universe.  But  if  I  go  yet  further,  and 
doubt  whether  there  is  any  universe  at  all  outside  of 
my  thought,  what  does  my  doubt  yet  mean  ?  If  it 
is  to  be  a  doubt  with  any  real  sense,  it  must  be  a 
doubt  still  with  an  object  before  it.  It  seems  then 
to  imply  an  assumed  order  of  being,  in  which  there 
are  at  least  two  elements,  my  lonely  thought  about 


396         THE   RELIGIOUS   ASPECT   OF   PHILOSOPHY. 

an  universe,  and  an  empty  environment  of  this 
thought,  in  which  there  is,  in  fact,  no  universe, 
But  this  empty  environment,  whose  nature  is  such 
that  my  thought  does  wrong  to  suppose  it  to  be  an 
universe,  what  is  that  ?  Surely  if  the  doubt  is  to 
have  meaning,  this  idea  needs  further  examination. 
The  absolute  skepticism  is  thus  full  of  assumptions. 
The  first  European  thinker  who  seems  to  have 
discussed  our  present  problem  was  Plato,  in  a  too- 
much-neglected  passage  of  the  "  Thesetetus," 1  where 
Socrates,  replying  to  the  second  definition  of  knowl- 
edge given  by  Theaetetus,  namely,  knowledge  is 
True  Opinion,  answers  that  his  great  difficulty  has 
often  been  to  see  how  any  opinion  can  possibly  be 
false.  The  conclusion  reached  by  Plato  is  no  very 
definite  one,  but  the  discussion  is  deeply  suggestive. 
And  we  cannot  do  better  here  than  to  pray  that  the 
shade  of  the  mighty  Greek  may  deign  to  save  us 
now  in  our  distress,  and  to  show  us  the  true  nature 
of  error. 

HI. 

Logicians  are  agreed  that  single  ideas,  thoughts 
viewed  apart  from  judgments,  are  neither  true  nor 
false.     Only  a   judgment  can  be  false.     And   if  a 
reasoning  process  is"  said  "tirHbe^Talsepthe  real  error 
lies  still  in   an  actual   or  suppressed  assertion.  __A_ 
fallacy  is  a  false  assertion  that  a  certain  conclusion 
follows  from  certain  premises.     EM£LLj^utherefa¥e 
generally  defined  as  a  judgmentJJiak_^^ 
with  itsjobjectT  In  the^erro^oias  judgment,  suK~ 

1  Plato,  Th.t  p.  187  sqq. 


THE  POSSIBILITY   OF  ERROR.  397 

ject  and  predicate  are  so  combined  as,  jin jbhe^object, 
the  corresponding  elements  are  not  combine^.  And 
thus  the  judgment  comes  to  be  false.  Now,  in  this 
definition,  nothing  is  doubtful  or  obscure  save  the 
one  thing,  namely,  the  assumed  relation  between  the 
judgment  and  its  object.  The  definition  assumes  as 
quite  clear  that  a  judgment  has  an  object,  wherewith 
it  can  agree  or  not  agree.  And  what  is  meant  by 
the  agreement  would  not  be  obscure,  if  we  could  see 
what  is  meant  by  the  object,  and  by  the  possession  of 
this  object  implied  in  the  pronoun  its.  What  then 
is  meant  by  its  object  ?  The  difficulties  involved  in 
this  phrase  begin  to  appear  as  soon  as  you  look 
closer.  First  then  the  object  of  the  assertion  is  as 
such  supposed  to  be  neither  the  subject  nor  the  pred- 
icate thereof.  It  is  external  to  the  judgment.  It 
has  a  nature  of  its  own.  Furthermore,  not  all  judg- 
ments have  the  same  object,  so  that  objects  are  very 
numerous.  But  from  the  infinity  of  real  or  of  pos- 
sible objects  the  judgment  somehow  picks  out  its 
own.  Thus  then  for  a  judgment  to  have  an  object^ 
there  must  be  something  about  the  judgment  that 
shows  what  one  of  the  external  objects  that  are  be- 
yon  (TTtself  this  judgment  does  pick  out^  as  jits  own. 
But  this  something  that  gives  the  judgment  its  ob- 
ject can  only  be  the  intention  wherewith  the  judg- 
ment is  accompanied.  A  judgment  has  as  object 
only  whatjt  intends  to  have  as  object..  It  has  to 
conform  only  to  that  to  which  it  wants  to  conform. 
But  the  essence  of  an  intention  is  the  knowledge  of 
what  one  intends.  One  can,  for  instance,  intend  a 
deed  or  any  of  its  consequences  only  in  so  far  as  he 


398         THE   RELIGIOUS   ASPECT   OF   PHILOSOPHY. 

foresees  them.  I  cannot  be  said  to  intend  the  acci- 
dental or  the  remote  or  even  the  immediate  conse- 
quences of  anything  that  I  do,  unless  I  foresaw  that 
they  would  follow ;  and  this  is  true  however  much 
the  lawyers  and  judges  may  find  it  practically  neces- 
sary to  hold  me  responsible  for  these  consequences. 
Even  so  we  all  find  it  practically  useful  to  regard 
one  of  our  fellows  as  in  error  in  case  his  assertions, 
as  we  understand  them,  seem  to  us  to  lead  to  conse- 
quences that  we  do  not  approve.  But  our  criticisms 
of  his  opinions,  just  like  legal  judgments  of  his  acts, 
are  not  intended  to  be  exact.  Common  sense  will 
admit  that,  unless  a  man  is  thinking  of  the  object  of 
which  I  suppose  him  to  be  thinking,  he  makes  no 
real  error  by  merely  failing  to  agree  with  the  object 
that  I  have  in  mind.  If  the  knights  in  the  fable 
judge  each  other  to  be  wrong,  that  is  because  each 
knight  takes  the  other's  shield  to  be  identical  with 
the  shield  as  he  himself  has  it  in  mind.  In  fact 
neither  of  them  is  in  error,  unless  his  assertion  is 
false  for  the  shield  as  he  intended  to  make  it  his 
object. 

St>  then  judgments  err  only  by  disagreeing  with 
their  intended  objects,  and  they  can  intend  an  object 
only  in  so  far  forth  as  this  object  is  known  to  thg 
thought  that  makes  tiie  judgment.  Such,  it  would 
seem,  is  the  consequence  of  the  common-sense  view. 
But  in  this  case  a  judgment  can  be  in  error  only 
if  it  is  knowingly  in  error.  That  also,  as  it  seems, 
follows  from  the  common-sense  suppositions.  Or,  if 
we  will  have  it  in  syllogistic  form :  — 

Everything  intended  is  something  known.     The 


THE  POSSIBILITY   OF   ERROR.  399 

object  even  of  an  erroneous  judgment  is  intended. 
.'.  The  object  even  of  an  error  is  something  known. 

Or:  Only  what  is  known  can  be  erred  about. 
Nor  can  we  yet  be  content  with  what  common  sense 
will  at  once  reply,  namely,  that  our  syllogism  uses 
known  ambiguously,  and  that  the  object  of  an  erro- 
neous judgment  is  known  enough  to  constitute  it  the 
object,  and  not  enough  to  prevent  the  error  about  it. 
This  must  no  doubt  be  the  fact,  but  it  is  not  of  itself 
clear ;  on  the  contrary,  just  here  is  the  problem.  As 
common  sense  conceives  the  matter,  the  object  of  a 
judgment  is  not  as  such  the  whole  outside  world  of 
common  sense,  with  all  its  intimate  interdependence 
of  facts,  with  all  its  unity  in  the  midst  of  diversity. 
On  the  contrary,  the  object  of  any  judgment  is  just 
that  portion  of  the  then  conceived  world,  just  that 
fragment,  that  aspect,  that  element  of  a  supposed 
reality,  which  is  seized  upon  for  the  purposes  of  just 
this  judgment.  Only  such  a  momentarily  grasped 
fragment  of  the  truth  can  possibly  be  present  in  any 
one  moment  of  thought  as  the  object  of  a  single  as- 
sertion. Now  it  is  hard  to  say  how  within  this  arbi- 
trarily chosen  fragment  itself  there  can  still  be  room 
for  the  partial  knowledge  that  is  sufficient  to  give  to 
the  judgment  its  object,  but  insufficient  to  secure  to 
the  judgment  its  accuracy.  If  I  aim  at  a  mark  with 
my  gun,  I  can  fail  to  hit  it,  because  choosing  and 
hitting  a  mark  are  totally  distinct  acts.  But,  in  the 
judgment,  choosing  and  knowing  the  object  seem  in- 
separable. No  doubt  somehow  our  difficulty  is  solu- 
ble, but  we  are  here  trying  first  to  show  that  it  is  a 
difficulty. 


400         THE   RELIGIOUS   ASPECT   OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

To  illustrate  here  by  a  familiar  case,  when  we 
speak  of  things  that  are  solely  matters  of  personal 
preference,  such  as  the  pleasure  of  a  sleigh-ride,  the 
taste  of  olives,  or  the  comfort  of  a  given  room,  and 
when  we  only  try  to  tell  how  these  things  appear  to 
us,  then  plainly  our  judgments,  if  sincere,  cannot  be 
in  error.  As  these  things  are  to  us,  so  they  are. 
We  are  their  measure.  To  doubt  our  truthfulness 
in  these  cases  is  to  doubt  after  the  fashion  of  the 
student  who  wondered  whether  the  star  that  the  as- 
tronomers call  Uranus  may  not  be  something  else 
after  all,  and  not  really  Uranus.  Surely  science  does 
not  progress  very  far  or  run  into  great  danger  of 
error  so  long  as  it  employs  itself  in  discovering  such 
occult  mysteries  as  the  names  of  the  stars.  But  our 
present  question  is,  How  do  judgments  that  can  be 
and  that  are  erroneous  differ  in  nature  from  these 
that  cannot  be  erroneous  ?  If  astronomers  would  be 
equally  right  in  case  they  should  agree  to  call  Ura- 
nus Humpty  Dumpty,  why  are  not  all  judgments 
equally  favored  ?  Since  the  judgment  chooses  its 
own  object,  and  has  it  only  in  so  far  as  it  chooses  it, 
how  can  it  be  in  that  partial  relation  to  its  object 
which  is  implied  in  the  supposition  of  an  erroneous 
assertion  ? 

Yet  again,  to  illustrate  the  difficulty  in  another 
aspect,  we  can  note  that  not  only  is  error  impossible 
about  the  perfectly  well-known,  but  that  error  is 
equally  impossible,  save  in  the  form  of  direct  self- 
contradiction,  about  what  is  absolutely  unknown. 
Spite  of  the  religious  awe  of  some  people  in  pres- 
ence of  the  Unknowable,  it  is  safe  to  say,  somewhat 


THE   POSSIBILITY    OF   ERROR.  401 

irreverently,  that  about  a  really  Unknowable  nobody 
could  make  any  sincere  and  self -consistent  assertions 
that  could  be  errors.  For  self-consistent  assertions 
about  the  Unknowable  would  of  necessity  be  mean- 
ingless. And  being  meaningless,  they  could  not  well 
be  false.  For  instance,  oiie  could  indeed  not  say 
that  the  Unknowable  contemplates  war  with  France, 
or  makes  sunspots,  or  will  be  the  next  Presidential 
candidate,  because  that  would  be  contradicting  one's 
self.  For  if  the  Unknowable  did  any  of  these  things, 
it  would  no  longer  be  the  Unknowable,  but  would 
become  either  the  known  or  the  discoverable.  But 
avoid  such  self  -  contradiction,  and  you  cannot  err 
about  the  Unknowable.  For  the  Unknowable  is  sim- 
ply our  old  friend  Abracadabra,  a  word  that  has  no 
meaning,  and  by  hypothesis  never  can  get  any.  So 
if  I  say  that  the  Unknowable  dines  in  vacuo  with 
the  chimera,  or  is  Humpty  Dumpty,  I  talk  nonsense, 
and  am  therefore  unable  to  make  a  mistake.  Non- 
sense is  error  only  when  it  involves  self-contradiction. 
Avoid  that,  and  nonsense  cannot  blunder,  having  no 
object  outside  of  itself  with  which  it  must  agree. 
But  all  this  illustrates  from  the  other  side  our  diffi- 
culty. Is  not  the  object  of  a  judgment,  in  so  far  as 
it  is  unknown  to  that  judgment,  like  the  Unknowa- 
bles  for  that  judgment  ?  To  be  in  error  about  the 
application  of  a  symbol,  you  must  have  a  symbol  that 
symbolizes  something.  But  in  so  far  as  the  thing 
symbolized  is  not  known  through  the  symbol,  how 
is  it  symbolized  by  that  symbol?  Is  it  not,  like  the 
Unknowable,  once  for  all  out  of  the  thought,  so  that 
one  cannot  just  then  be  thinking  about  it  at  all,  and 

26 


402         THE   RELIGIOUS   ASPECT    OF   PHILOSOPHY. 

so  cannot,  in  this  thought  at  least,  be  making  blun- 
ders about  it  ?  But  in  so  far  as  the  thing  symbolized 
is,  through  the  symbol,  in  one's  thought,  why  is  it 
not  known,  and  so  correctly  judged  ?  All  this  in- 
volves that  old  question  of  the  nature  of  symbols. 
They  are  to  mean  for  us  more  than  we  know  that 
they  mean.  How  can  that  be  ?  No  doubt  all  that 
is  really  possible,  but  how  ? 


IV. 

We  follow  our  difficulty  into  another  department. 
Let  us  attempt  a  sort  of  provisional  psychological 
description  of  a  judgment  as  a  state  of  mind.  So 
regarded,  a  judgment  is  simply  a  fact  that  occurs  in 
somebody's  thought.  If  we  try  to  describe  it  as  an 
occurrence,  without  asking  whence  it  came,  we  shall 
perhaps  find  in  it  three  elements,  —  elements  which 
are  in  some  fashion  described  in  Ueberweg's  well- 
known  definition  of  a  judgment  as  the  "  Conscious- 
ness about  the  objective  validity  of  a  subjective 
union  of  ideas."  Our  interpretation  of  them  shall  be 
this  :  The  elements  are :  The  Subject,  with  the  ac- 
companying shade  of  curiosity  about  it ;  the  Pred- 
icate, with  the  accompanying  sense  of  its  worth  in 
satisfying  a  part  of  our  curiosity  about  the  subject ; 
and  the  Sense  of  Dependence,  whereby  we  feel  the 
value  of  this  act  to  lie,  not  in  itself,  but  in  its  agree- 
ment with  a  vaguely  felt  Beyond,  that  stands  out 
there  as  Object. 

Now  this  analysis  of  the  elements  of  a  judgment  is 
no  explanation  of  our  difficulties  ;  and  in  fact  for 


THE  POSSIBILITY    OF  ERROR.  403 

the  moment  only  embarrasses  us  more.  But  the  na- 
ture of  the  difficulty  may  come  home  to  us  somewhat 
more  clearly,  if  we  try  to  follow  the  thread  of  this 
analysis  a  little  further.  Even  if  it  is  a  very  imper- 
fect account,  it  may  serve  to  lead  us  up  to  the  true 
insight  that  we  seek  into  the  nature  of  error.  Let 
us  make  the  analysis  a  little  more  detailed. 

In  its  typical  form  then,  the  judgment  as  a  mental 
state  seems  to  us  to  begin  with  a  relatively  incom- 
plete or  unstable  or  disconnected  mass  of  conscious- 
ness, which  we  have  called  the  Subject,  as  it  first  be- 
gins to  be  present  to  us.  This  subject-idea  is  at- 
tended by  some  degree  of  effort,  namely,  of  atten- 
tion, whose  tendency  is  to  complete  this  incomplete 
subject  by  bringing  it  into  closer  connection  with 
more  familiar  mental  life.  This  more  familiar  life  is 
represented  by  the  predicate-idea.  If  the  effort  is 
successful,  the  subject  has  new  elements  united  to  it, 
assumes  in  consciousness  a  defmiteness,  a  coherency 
with  other  states,  a  familiarity,  which  it  lacked  at  the 
outset  of  the  act  of  judgment ;  and  this  coherency  it 
gets  through  its  union  with  the  predicate.  All  this 
is  accompanied  further  by  what  one  for  short  may 
call  a  sense  of  dependence.  The  judgment  feels  it- 
self not  alone,  but  looks  to  a  somewhat  indefinite  ob- 
ject as  the  model  after  which  the  present  union  of 
ideas  is  to  be  fashioned.  And  in  this  way  we  ex- 
plain how  the  judgment  is,  in  those  words  of  Ueber- 
weg's  definition,  "  the  consciousness  about  the  objec- 
tive validity  of  a  subjective  union  of  ideas." 

N™y  rn  fl  m^ro  nnmplnti'oxLpf  subject-idea  through 
the  addition  of  a  predicate-idea,  the  judgment  is  sim- 


404         THE   RELIGIOUS  ASPECT    OF   PHILOSOPHY. 

ply  a  mental  phenomenon,  having  interest  only  to 
the  person  that  experiences  it,  and  to  a  psychologist. 
But  as  true  or  as  false  the  judgment  must  be  viewed 
in  respect  to  the  indefinite  object  of  what  we  have 
called  the  sense  of  dependence,  whereby  the  judg- 
ment is  accompanied.  Seldom  in  any  ordinary  judg- 
ment does  this  object  become  perfectly  full  and 
clear ;  for  to  make  it  so  would  often  require  many, 
perhaps  an  infinite,  series  of  judgments.  Yet,  for  the 
one  judgment,  the  object,  whether  full  and  clear  or 
not,  exists  as  object  only  in  so  far  forth  as  the  sense 
of  dependence  has  defined  it.  And  the  judgment  is 
true  or  false  only  with  reference  to  this  undefined  ob- 
ject. The  intention  to  agree  with  the  object  is  con- 
tained  in  the  sense  jy(L  dependence  upon  the  object^ 
and  remains  for  this  judgment  incomplete,  like  the 
object  itself.  Somewhat  vaguely  this  single  actTin- 
tends  to  agree  with  this  vague  object. 

Such  being  the  case,  how  can  the  judgment,  as 
thus  described,  fairly  be  called  false  ?  As  mere  psy- 
chological combination  of  ideas  it  is  neither  true  nor 
false.  As  accompanied  by  the  sense  of  dependence 
upon  an  object,  it  would  be  false  if  it  disagreed  with 
its  imperfectly  defined  object.  But,  as  described, 
the  only  object  that  the  judgment  has  is  this  imper- 
fectly defined  one.  With  this,  in  so  far  as  it  is  for 
the  moment  defined,  the  judgment  must  needs  agree. 
In  so  far  as  it  is  not  defined,  it  is  however  not  object 
for  this  judgment  at  all,  but  for  some  other  one. 
What  the  imperfect  sense  of  dependence  would  fur- 
ther imply  if  it  existed  in  a  complete  instead  of  in 
an  incomplete  state,  nobody  can  tell,  any  more  than 


THE   POSSIBILITY   OF   ERROR.  405 

one  can  tell  what  towns  would  grow  up  by  a  given 
rain-pool,  if  it  were  no  pool,  but  a  great  lake.  The 
object  of  a  single  judgment,  being  what  it  is,  namely, 
a  vaguely  defined  object,  present  to  this  judgment,  is 
just  what  it  is  for  this  judgment,  and  the  judgment 
seems  once  for  all  to  be  true,  in  case  it  is  sincere. 

Some  one  may  here  at  once  answer  that  we  neg- 
lect in  this  description  the  close  interdependence  of 
various  judgments.  Thought,  some  one  may  say,  is 
an  organic  unity.  Separated  from  all  else  but  its 
own  incompletely  defined  object,  a  single  judgment 
cannot  be  erroneous.  Only  in  the  organic  unity  of 
a  series  of  judgments,  having  a  common  object,  is 
the  error  of  one  of  them  possible.  We  reply  that 
all  this  will  turn  out  to  be  just  our  result.  But  the 
usual  supposition  at  the  outset  is  that  any  judgment 
has  by  itself  its  own  object,  so  that  thereby  alone, 
apart  from  other  judgments,  it  stands  or  falls.  And 
thus  far  we  have  tried  to  show  that  this  natural  sup- 
position leads  us  into  difficulty.  We  cannot  see 
how  a  single  sincere  judgment  should  possibly  fail 
to  agree  with  its  own  chosen  object.  But  enough  of 
our  problem  in  general.  We  must  consider  certain 
classes  of  errors  more  in  detail.  Let  us  see  how,  in 
these  special  classes  of  cases,  we  shall  succeed  in  ver- 
ifying the  natural  presupposition  of  common  sense, 
which  regards  error  as  possible  only  when  our  object 
is  not  wholly  present  to  mind,  and  which  assumes 
that  a  judgment  can  have  an  object  that  is  yet  only 
partially  present  to  mind.  In  choosing  the  classes  of 
cases,  we  shall  first  follow  common  sense  as  to  their 
definition.  We  shall  take  just  the  assumptions  of 


406         THE   RELIGIOUS   ASPECT   OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

daily  life,  and  shall  show  that  they  lead  us  into  diffi- 
culty. We  are  not  for  the  first  bound  to  explain 
why  these  assumptions  are  made.  That  common 
sense  makes  them  is  enough. 

But  let  the  reader  remember :  The  whole  value  of 
our  argument  lies  in  its  perfect  generality.  How- 
ever much  we  dwell  on  particular  classes  of  errors, 
we  care  nothing  for  the  proof  that  just  those  errors 
are  inexplicable,  but  only  for  the  fact  that  they  il- 
lustrate how,  without  some  entirely  new  hypothesis, 
absolutely  all  error  becomes  impossible.  This  or 
that  class  of  judgments  may  be  one  in  which  all  the 
judgments  are  relative,  but  the  total  relativity  of 
our  thought  implies  an  incomprehensible  and  contra- 
dictory state  of  things.  Any  hypothesis  about  error 
that  makes  total  relativity  the  only  admissible  view, 
must  therefore  give  place  to  some  new  hypothesis. 
And  our  illustrations  in  the  following  are  intended 
to  show  that  just  what  constitutes  the  difficulty  in 
respect  of  these  illustrations,  makes  the  existence  of 
any  error  inexplicable  without  some  new  hypothesis. 


V. 

The  class  of  errors  that  we  shall  first  take  seems, 
to  common  sense,  common  enough.  It  is  the  class 
known  as  errors  about  our  neighbor's  states  of  mind. 
Let  us  then,  for  argument's  sake,  assume  without 
proof  that  our  neighbors  do  exist.  For  we  are  not 
here  concerned  to  answer  Solipsism,  but  merely  to 
exemplify  the  difficulties  about  the  nature  of  error. 
If  our  neighbors  did  not  exist,  then  the  nature  of 


THE   POSSIBILITY    OF  ERROR.  407 

the  error  that  would  lie  in  saying  that  they  do  exist 
would  present  almost  exactly  the  same  difficulties. 
We  prefer,  however,  to  begin  with  the  common-sense 
assumption  about  ourselves  and  our  neighbors  as 
separate  individuals,  and  to  ask  how  error  can  then 
arise  in  judging  of  our  neighbors'  minds. 

In  the  first  place  then  :  Who  is  my  neighbor  ? 
Surely,  on  the  assumptions  that  we  all  make,  and 
that  we  made  all  through  the  ethical  part  of  our  dis- 
cussion, he  is  no  one  of  my  thoughts,  nor  is  any  part 
of  him  ever  any  part  of  my  thought.  He  is  not  my 
object,  but,  in  Professor  Clifford's  phrase,  an  "  eject," 
wholly  outside  of  my  ideas.  He  is  no  "  thing  in  my 
dream,"  just  as  I  am  not  in  his  dream. 

Yet  I  make  judgments  about  him,  and  he  makes 
them  about  me.  And  when  I  make  judgments  about 
him,  I  do  so  by  having  in  my  thought  some  set  of  my 
own  ideas  that,  although  not  himself,  do  yet,  as  I 
say,  represent  him.  A  kind  of  dummy,  a  symbol,  a 
graven  image  of  my  own  thought's  creation,  a  phan- 
tom of  mine,  stands  there  in  me  as  the  representa- 
tive of  his  mind  ;  and  all  I  say  about  my  neighbor's 
inner  life  refers  directly  to  this  representative.  The 
Scottish  philosophy  has  had  much  to  say  to  the  world 
about  what  it  calls  direct  or  presentative,  as  opposed 
to  representative,  knowledge  of  objects.  But  surely 
the  most  obstinate  Scottish  philosopher  that  ever  ate 
oatmeal  cannot  hold  so  tenaciously  by  his  national 
doctrine  as  to  say  that  I  have,  according  to  common 
sense,  anything  but  a  representative  knowledge  of 
my  'neighbor's  thoughts  and  feelings.  That  is  the 
only  sort  of  knowledge  that  common  sense  will  re- 


408         THE   RELIGIOUS  ASPECT   OF   PHILOSOPHY. 

gard  as  possible  to  me,  if  so  much  as  that  is  possible0 
But  how  I  can  know  about  this  outside  being  is  not 
now  our  concern.  We  notice  only  that  our  difficulty 
about  error  conies  back  to  us  in  a  new  form.  For 
how  can  I  err  about  my  neighbor,  since,  for  this  com- 
mon-sense view,  he  is  not  even  partly  in  my  thoughts  ? 
How  can  I  intend  that  as  the  object  of  my  thought 
which  never  can  be  object  for  me  at  all  ? 

But  not  everybody  will  at  once  feel  the  force  of 
this  question.  We  must  be  more  explicit.  Let  us 
take  the  now  so  familiar  suggestion  of  our  great  hu- 
morist about  the  six  people  that  take  part  in  every 
conversation  between  two  persons.  If  John  and 
Thomas  are  talking  together,  then  the  real  John  and 
Thomas,  their  respective  ideas  of  themselves,  and 
their  ideas  of  each  other,  are  all  parties  to  the  con- 
versation. Let  us  consider  four  of  these  persons, 
namely,  the  real  John,  the  real  Thomas,  John  as 
Thomas  conceives  him,  and  Thomas  as  John  con- 
ceives him.  When  John  judges,  of  whom  does  he 
think?  Plainly  of  that  which  can  be  an  object  to 
his  thoughts,  namely,  of  his  Thomas.  About  whom 
then  can  he  err  ?  About  his  Thomas  ?  No,  for  he 
knows  him  too  well.  His  conception  of  Thomas  is 
his  conception,  and  what  he  asserts  it  to  be,  that  it 
is  for  him.  About  the  real  Thomas  ?  No,  for  it 
should  seem,  according  to  common  sense,  that  he  has 
nothing  to  do  with  the  real  Thomas  in  his  thought, 
since  that  Thomas  never  becomes  any  part  of  his 
thought  at  all.  u  But,"  says  one,  "  there  must  be 
some  fallacy  here,  since  we  are  sure  that  John  can 
err  about  the  real  Thomas."  Indeed  he  can,  say 


THE   POSSIBILITY    OF   ERROR.  409 

we  ;  but  ours  is  not  this  fallacy.  Common  sense  has 
made  it.  Common  sense  has  said  :  "  Thomas  never 
is  in  John's  thought,  and  yet  John  can  blunder 
about  Thomas."  How  shall  we  unravel  the  knot  ? 

One  way  suggests  itself.  Mayhap  we  have  been 
too  narrow  in  our  definition  of  object.  Common 
sense  surely  insists  that  objects  are  outside  of  our 
thought.  If,  then,  I  have  a  judgment,  and  another 
being  sees  both  my  judgment  and  some  outside  ob- 
ject that  was  not  in  my  thought,  and  sees  how  that 
thought  is  unlike  the  object  in  some  critical  respect, 
this  being  could  say  that  my  assertion  was  an  error. 
So  then  with  John  and  Thomas.  .If  Thomas  could 
know  John's  thoughts  about  him,  then  Thomas  could 
possibly  see  John's  error.  That  is  what  is  meant 
by  the  error  in  John's  thought. 

But  mere  disagreement  of  a  thought  with  any  ran- 
dom object  does  not  make  the  thought  erroneous. 
The  judgment  must  disagree  with  its  chosen  object. 
If  John  never  has  Thomas  in  thought  at  all,  how 
can  John  choose  the  real  Thomas  as  his  object  ?  If 
I  judge  about  a  penholder  that  is  in  this  room,  and 
if  the  next  room  is  in  all  respects  like  this,  save  for 
a  penholder  in  it,  with  which  my  assertion  does  not 
agree,  who,  looking  at  that  penholder  in  that  other 
room,  can  say  that  my  judgment  is  false  ?  For  I 
meant  not  that  penholder  when  I  spoke,  but  this 
one.  I  knew  perhaps  nothing  about  that  one,  had 
it  not  in  mind,  and  so  could  not  err  about  it.  Even 
so,  suppose  that  outside  of  John  there  is  a  real 
Thomas,  similar,  as  it  happens,  to  John's  ideal 
Thomas,  but  lacking  some  thought  or  affection  that 


410         THE  RELIGIOUS   ASPECT   OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

John  attributes  to  his  ideal  Thomas.  Does  that 
make  John's  notion  an  error  ?  No,  for  he  spoke  and 
could  speak  only  of  his  ideal  Thomas.  The  real 
Thomas  was  the  other  room,  that  he  knew  not  of, 
the  other  side  of  the  shield,  that  he  never  could  qon- 
ceive.  His  Thomas  was  his  phantom  Thomas.  This 
phantom  it  is  that  he  judges  and  thinks  about,  and 
his  thoughts  may  have  their  own  consistency  or  in- 
consistency. But  with  the  real  other  person  they 
have  nothing  to  do.  The  real  other  is  not  his  ob- 
ject, and  how  can  he  err  about  what  is  not  object 
for  him  ? 

Absurd,  indeed,  some  one  will  reply  to  us.  John 
and  Thomas  have  to  deal  with  representative  phan- 
toms of  each  other,  to  be  sure ;  but  that  only  makes 
each  more  apt  to  err  about  the  real  other.  And  the 
test  that  they  can  err  is  a  very  simple  one.  Suppose 
a  spectator,  a  third  person,  to  whom  John  and 
Thomas  were  both  somehow  directly  present,  so  that 
he  as  it  were  included  both  of  them.  Then  John's 
judgment  of  his  phantom  Thomas  would  be  by  this 
spectator  at  once  compared  with  the  real  Thomas, 
and  even  so  would  Thomas's  judgment  of  John  be 
treated.  If  now  John's  phantom  Thomas  agreed 
with  the  real  Thomas,  then  John's  ideas  would  be 
declared  in  so  far  truthful ;  otherwise  they  would  be 
erroneous.  And  this  explains  what  is  meant  by 
John's  power  to  err  about  Thomas. 

The  explanation  is  fair  enough  for  its  own  pur- 
pose, and  we  shall  need  it  again  before  long.  But 
just  now  we  cannot  be  content  with  it.  For  what 
we  want  to  know  is  not  what  the  judgment  of  a 


THE  POSSIBILITY   OF   ERROR.  411 

third  thinker  would  be  in  case  these  two  were  some- 
how not  independent  beings  at  all,  but  things  in 
this  third  being's  thought.  For  we  have  started  out 
with  the  supposition  of  common  sense  that  John 
and  Thomas  are  not  dreams  or  thoughts  of  some 
higher  third  being,  but  that  they  are  independent 
beings  by  themselves.  Our  supposition  may  have 
to  be  given  up  hereafter,  but  for  the  present  we 
want  to  hold  fast  to  it.  And  so  John's  judgment, 
which  we  had  supposed  to  be  about  the  independ- 
ently existing  Thomas,  has  now  turned  out  to  be 
only  a  judgment  about  John's  idea  of  Thomas.  But 
judgments  are  false  only  in  case  they  disagree  with 
their  intended  objects.  What,  however,  is  the  ob- 
ject of  John's  judgment  when  he  thinks  about 
Thomas  ?  Not  the  real  Thomas,  who  could  not  pos- 
sibly be  an  object  in  another  man's  thoughts.  John's 
real  object  being  an  ideal  Thomas,  he  cannot,  if  sin- 
cere, and  if  fully  conscious  of  what  he  means  by 
Thomas,  fail  to  agree  in  his  statements  with  his  own 
ideal.  In  short,  on  this  our  original  supposition, 
John  and  Thomas  are  independent  entities,  each  of 
which  cannot  possibly  enter  in  real  person  into  the 
thoughts  of  the  other.  Each  may  be  somehow  rep- 
resented in  the  other's  thoughts  by  a  phantom,  and 
only  this  phantom  can  be  intended  by  the  other 
when  he  judges  about  the  first.  For  unless  one  talks 
nonsense,  it  should  seem  as  if  one  could  mean  only 
what  one  has  in  mind. 

Thus,  like  the  characters  in  a  certain  Bab  ballad, 
real  John,  real  Thomas,  the  people  in  this  simple 
tale,  are  total  strangers  to  each  other.  You  might 


412         THE   RELIGIOUS  ASPECT   OF   PHILOSOPHY. 

as  well  ask  a  blind  man  to  make  true  or  false  judg- 
ments about  the  real  effects  of  certain  combinations 
of  colors,  as  to  ask  either  John  or  Thomas,  defined 
as  common  sense  defines  them,  to  make  any  judg- 
ments about  each  other.  Common  sense  will  assert 
that  a  blind  man  can  learn  and  repeat  verbally  cor- 
rect statements  about  color,  or  verbally  false  state- 
ments about  color,  but,  according  to  the  common- 
sense  view,  in  no  case  can  he  err  about  color-ideas 
as  such,  which  are  never  present  to  him.  You  will 
be  quite  ready  to  say  that  a  dog  can  make  mistakes 
about  the  odors  of  the  numberless  tracks  on  the 
highway.  You  will  assure  us,  however,  that  you 
cannot  make  mistakes  about  them  because  these 
odors  do  not  exist  for  you.  According  to  the  com- 
mon-sense view,  a  mathematician  can  make  blunders 
in  demonstrating  the  properties  of  equations.  A 
Bushman  cannot,  for  he  can  have  no  ideas  correspond- 
ing to  equations.  But  how  then  can  John  or  Thomas 
make  errors  about  each  other,  when  neither  is  more 
present  to  the  other  than  is  color  to  the  blind  man, 
the  odor  of  the  tracks  on  the  highway  to  the  dog's 
master,  or  the  idea  of  an  equation  to  a  Bushman? 
Here  common  sense  forsakes  us,  assuring  us  that 
there  is  such  error,  but  refusing  to  define  it. 

The  inconsistency  involved  in  all  this  common- 
sense  view,  and  the  consequences  of  the  inconsistency, 
will  appear  yet  better  with  yet  further  illustration. 
A  dream  is  false  in  so  far  as  it  contains  the  judgment 
that  such  and  such  things  exist  apart  from  us ;  but 
at  least  in  so  far  as  we  merely  assert  in  our  dreams 
about  the  objects  as  we  conceive  them,  we  make  true 


THE   POSSIBILITY   OF   ERROR.  413 

assertions.  But  is  not  our  actual  life  of  assertions 
about  actual  fellow-beings  much  like  a  dream  to 
which  there  should  happen  to  correspond  some  real 
scene  or  event  in  the  world  ?  Such  correspondence 
would  not  make  the  dream  really  "  true,"  nor  yet 
false.  It  would  be  a  coincidence,  remarkable  for  an 
outside  observer,  but  none  the  less  would  the  dreamer 
be  thinking  in  his  dream  not  about  external  objects, 
but  about  the  things  in  his  dream.  But  is  not  our 
supposed  Thomas  so  and  only  so  in  the  thought  of 
John  as  he  would  be  if  John  chanced  to  dream  of 
a  Thomas  that  was,  to  an  external  spectator,  like  the 
real  one  ?  Is  not  then  the  phantom  Thomas,  John's 
only  direct  object,  actually  a  thing  in  John's  thought? 
Is  then  the  independent  Thomas  an  object  for  John 
in  any  sense  ? 

Yet  again.  Let  us  suppose  that  two  men  are  shut 
up,  each  in  a  closed  room  by  himself,  and  for  his 
whole  life ;  and  let  us  suppose  that  by  a  lantern  con- 
trivance each  of  them  is  able  at  times  to  produce  on 
the  wall  of  the  other's  room  a  series  of  pictures. 
But  neither  of  them  can  ever  know  what  pictures  he 
produces  in  the  other's  room,  and  neither  can  know 
anything  of  the  other's  room,  as  such,  but  only  of 
the  pictures.  Let  the  two  remain  forever  in  this  re- 
lation. One  of  them,  A,  sees  on  his  wall  pictures, 
which  resemble  more  or  less  what  he  has  seen  in  his 
own  room  at  other  times.  Yet  he  perceives  these  to 
be  only  pictures,  and  he  supposes  them  to  represent 
what  goes  on  in  another  room,  which  he  conceives  as 
like  his  own.  He  is  interested,  he  examines  the  phe- 
nomena, he  predicts  their  future  changes,  he  passes 


414         THE   RELIGIOUS  ASPECT   OF   PHILOSOPHY. 

judgment  upon  them.  He  may,  if  you  like  to  con- 
tinue the  hypothesis,  find  some  way  of  affecting 
them,  by  himself  acting  in  a  way  mysterious  to  him- 
self so  as  to  produce  changes  in  B's  actual  room, 
which  again  affect  the  pictures  that  the  real  B  pro- 
duces in  A's  room.  Thus  A  might  hold  what  he 
would  call  communication  with  his  phantom  room. 
Even  so,  B  lives  with  pictures  before  him  that  are 
produced  from  A's  room.  Now  one  more  supposi- 
tion, namely,  that  A  and  B  have  absolutely  no  other 
means  of  communication,  that  both  are  shut  up  alto- 
gether and  always  have  been,  that  neither  has  any 
objects  before  him  but  his  own  thoughts  and  the 
changing  pictures  on  the  wall  of  his  room.  In  this 
case  what  difference  does  it  make  whether  or  no  the 
pictures  in  A's  room  are  actually  like  the  things 
that  could  be  seen  in  B's  room  ?  Will  that  make 
A's  judgments  either  true  or  false?  Even  if  A, 
acting  by  means  that  he  himself  cannot  understand, 
is  able  to  control  the  pictures  on  his  wall  by  some 
alteration  that  he  unconsciously  produces  in  B's 
room  and  its  pictures,  still  A  cannot  be  said  to  have 
any  knowledge  of  the  real  B  and  his  room  at  all. 
And,  for  the  same  reason,  A  cannot  make  mistakes 
about  the  real  room  of  B,  for  he  will  never  even 
think  of  that  real  room.  He  will,  like  a  man  in  a 
dream,  think  and  be  able  to  think  only  of  the  pic- 
tures on  his  wall.  And  when  he  refers  them  to  an 
outside  cause,  he  does  not  mean  by  this  cause  the  real 
B  and  his  real  room,  for  he  has  never  dreamed  of  the 
real  B,  but  only  of  the  pictures  and  of  his  own  inter- 
pretation of  them.  He  can  therefore  make  no  false 


THE   POSSIBILITY   OF   ERROR.  415 

judgments  about  B's  room,  any  more  than  a  Bushman 
can  make  false  judgments  about  the  integral  calculus. 

If  to  our  present  world  there  does  correspond  a 
second  world  somewhere  off  in  space,  a  world  exactly 
like  this,  where  just  the  same  events  at  every  instant 
do  actually  take  place,  still  the  judgments  that  we 
make  about  our  world  are  not  actually  true  or  false 
with  reference  to  that  world,  for  we  mean  this  world, 
not  that  one,  when  we  judge.  Why  are  not  John's 
Thomas  and  the  real  Thomas  related  like  this  world 
and  that  second  world  in  distant  space  ?  Why  are 
not  both  like  the  relation  of  A's  conceived  phantom 
room  and  B's  real  room  ?  Nothing  of  either  real 
room  is  ever  present  to  the  other.  Each  prisoner 
can  make  true  or  false  judgments  if  at  all,  then, 
only  about  the  pictures  on  his  wall ;  but  neither 
has  even  the  suggestion  that  could  lead  him  to  make 
a  blunder  about  the  other's,  real  room,  of  which  he 
has  and  can  have  not  the  faintest  idea. 

One  reason  why  we  fail  to  see  at  once  this  fact 
lies  in  the  constant  tendency  to  regard  the  matter 
from  the  point  of  view  of  a  third  person,  instead  of 
from  the  point  of  view  that  we  still  implicitly  attrib- 
ute to  A  and  B  themselves.  If  A  could  get  outside 
of  his  room  once  and  see  B's  room,  then  he  could 
say :  "  My  picture  was  a  good  one,"  or  the  reverse. 
But,  in  the  supposed  case,  he  not  only  never  sees  B's 
room,  but  he  never  sees  anything  but  his  own  pic- 
tures, never  gets  out  of  his  room  at  all  for  any  pur- 
pose. Hence,  his  sole  objects  of  assertion  being  his 
pictures,  he  is  innocent  of  any  power  to  err  about 
B's  room  as  it  is  in  itself,  even  as  the  man  born  blind 


416         THE   RELIGIOUS   ASPECT   OF   PHILOSOPHY. 

is  innocent  of  any  power  to  err  about  the  relations 
of  colors. 

Now  this  relation  of  A  and  B,  as  they  were  sup- 
posed to  dwell  in  their  perpetual  imprisonment,  is 
essentially  like  the  relation  that  we  previously  pos- 
tulated between  two  independent  subjects.  If  I  can- 
not have  you  in  my  thought  at  all,  but  only  a  picture 
produced  by  you,  I  am  in  respect  to  you  like  A  con- 
fined to  the  pictures  produced  from  B's  room.  How- 
ever much  I  may  fancy  that  I  am  talking  of  you,  I 
am  really  talking  about  my  idea  of  you,  which  for 
me  can  have  no  relation  whatever  to  the  real  you. 
And  so  John  and  Thomas  remain  shut  up  in  their 
prisons.  Each  thinks  of  his  phantom  of  the  other. 
Only  a  third  person,  who  included  them  both,  who 
in  fact  treated  them  as,  in  the  Faust-Epilogue,  the 
Pater  Seraphicus  treats  the  selige  Kndbzn  (Er 
nimmt  sie  in  sich,  says,  the  stage  direction)  —  only 
such  an  inclusive  thought  could  compare  the  phan- 
toms with  the  real,  and  only  in  him,  not  in  them- 
selves, would  John  and  Thomas  have  any  ideas  of 
each  other  at  all,  true  or  false. 

This  result  is  foreign  to  our  every-day  thought,  be- 
cause this  every-day  thought  really  makes  innocent 
use  of  two  contradictory  views  of  the  relations  of 
conscious  beings.  On  the  one  hand  we  regard  them 
as  utterly  remote  from  one  another,  as  what  Pro- 
fessor Clifford  called  ejects ;  and  then  we  speak  of 
them  as  if  the  thoughts  of  one  could  as  such  become 
thoughts  of  the  other,  or  even  as  if  one  of  them 
could  as  an  independent  being  still  become  object 
in  the  thought  of  the  other.  No  wonder  that,  with 


THE   POSSIBILITY   OF   ERROR.  417 

such  contradictory  assumptions  as  to  the  nature  of 
our  relations  to  our  neighbors,  we  find  it  very  easy 
to  make  absurd  statements  about  the  meaning  of 
error.  The  contradiction  of  common  sense  has  in 
fact  just  here  much  to  do  with  the  ethical  illusion 
that  we  called  the  illusion  of  selfishness.  To  clear 
up  this  point  will  be  useful  to  us,  therefore,  in  more 
ways  than  one. 

VI. 

Disappointed  once  more  in  our  efforts  to  under- 
stand how  error  is  possible,  we  turn  to  another  class 
of  cases,  which  lie  in  a  direction  where,  at  least  for 
this  once,  all  will  surely  be  plain.  Errors  about 
matters  of  fact  or  experience  are  certainly  clear 
enough  in  nature.  And  as  this  class  of  errors  is 
practically  most  important,  the  subtleties  of  our  pre- 
vious investigation  may  be  dismissed  with  light  heart 
so  soon  as  we  have  gotten  rid  of  the  few  little  ques- 
tions that  will  now  beset  us.  It  is  to  be  noted  that 
all  errors  about  material  objects,  about  the  laws 
of  nature,  about  history,  and  about  the  future,  are 
alike  errors  about  our  actual  or  possible  experiences. 
We  expect  or  postulate  an  experience  that  at  the 
given  time,  or  under  the  given  conditions,  turns  out 
to  be  other  than  it  was  postulated  or  expected  to  be. 
Now  since  our  experiences  not  now  present  are  objec- 
tive facts,  and  capable  of  clear  definition,  it  would 
seem  clear  that  error  concerning  them  is  an  easily 
comprehensible  thing. 

But  alas !  again  we  are  disappointed.  That  er- 
rors in  matters  of  experience  are  common  enough  is 

27 


418         THE   RELIGIOUS   ASPECT    OF   PHILOSOPHY. 

indubitable,  but  equally  evident  becomes  the  diffi- 
culty of  defining  what  they  are  and  how  they  are 
possible.  Take  the  case  of  error  about  an  expected 
future.  What  do  we  mean  by  a  future  time?  How 
do  we  identify  a  particular  time  ?  Both  these  ques- 
tions plunge  us  into  the  sea  of  problems  about  the 
nature  of  time  itself.  When  I  say,  Thus  and  so 
will  it  be  at  such  and  such  a  future  moment,  I  pos- 
tulate certain  realities  not  now  given  to  my  con- 
sciousness. And  singular  realities  they  are.  For 
they  have  now  no  existence  at  all.  Yet  I  postulate 
that  I  can  err  about  them.  This  their  non-existence 
is  a  peculiar  kind  of  non-existence,  and  requires  me 
to  make  just  such  and  such  affirmations  about  it. 
If  I  fail  to  correspond  to  the  true  nature  of  this 
non-existent  reality,  I  make  an  error ;  and  it  is  pos- 
tulated not  merely  that  my  present  statement  will 
in  that  case  hereafter  turn  out  false  or  become  false, 
but  also  that  it  is  now  false,  is  at  this  moment  an 
error,  even  though  the  reality  with  which  it  is  to 
agree  is  centuries  off  in  the  future.  But  this  is  not 
all  the  difficulty.  I  postulate  also  that  an  error  in 
prediction  can  be  discovered  when  the  time  comes 
by  the  failure  of  the  prediction  to  verify  itself.  I 
postulate  then  that  I  can  look  back  and  say :  Thus 
and  thus  I  predicted  about  this  moment,  and  thus 
and  thus  it  has  come  to  pass,  and  this  event  con- 
tradicts that  expectation.  But  can  I  in  fact  ever 
accomplish  this  comparison  at  all  ?  And  is  the  com- 
parison very  easily  intelligible  ?  For  when  the  event 
comes  to  pass,  the  expectation  no  longer  exists.  The 
two  thoughts,  namely,  expectation  and  actual  expe- 


THE   POSSIBILITY   OF   ERROR.  419 

rience,  are  separate  thoughts,  far  apart  in  time. 
How  can  I  bring  them  together  to  compare  them,  so 
as  to  see  if  they  have  the  same  object  ?  It  will  not 
do  to  appeal  to  memory  for  the  purpose ;  for  the 
same  question  would  recur  about  the  memory  in  its 
relation  to  the  original  thought.  How  can  a  past 
thought,  being  past,  be  compared  to  a  present  thought 
to  see  whether  they  stand  related  ?  The  past  thought 
lived  in  itself,  had  its  own  ideas  of  what  it  then 
called  future,  and  its  own  interpretation  thereof. 
How  can  you  show,  or  intelligently  affirm,  that  the 
conception  which  the  past  expectation  had  of  its 
future  moment  is  so  identical  with  the  conception 
which  this  present  thought  has  of  this  present  mo- 
ment, as  to  make  these  two  conceived  moments  one 
and  the  same  ?  Here  in  short  we  have  supposed  two 
different  ideas,  one  of  an  expected  future,  the  other 
of  an  experienced  present,  and  we  have  supposed 
the  two  ideas  to  be  widely  separated  in  time,  and  by 
hypothesis  they  are  not  together  in  one  consciousness 
at  all.  Now  how  can  one  say  that  in  fact  they  relate 
to  the  same  moment  at  all  ?  How  is  it  intelligible 
to  say  that  they  do  ?  How,  in  fine,  can  a  not-given 
future  be  a  real  object  of  any  thought;  and  how, 
when  it  is  once  the  object  thereof,  can  any  subse- 
quent moment  be  identified  with  this  object  ? 

A  present  thought  and  a  past  thought  are  in  fact 
separate,  even  as  were  John  and  Thomas.  Each 
one  means  the  object  that  it  thinks.  How  can  they 
have  a  common  object  ?  Are  they  not  once  for  all 
different  thoughts,  each  with  its  own  intent  ?  But 
in  order  to  render  intelligible  the  existence  of  error 


420         THE   RELIGIOUS   ASPECT    OF   PHILOSOPHY. 

about  matters  of  fact,  we  must  make  the  unintelligi- 
ble assumption,  so  it  would  seem,  that  these  two  dif- 
ferent thoughts  have  the  same  intent,  and  are  but 
one.  And  such  is  the  difficulty  that  we  find  in  our 
second  great  class  of  cases. 


VH. 

So  much  for  the  problem,  both  in  general  and  in 
some  particular  instances.  But  now  may  not  the 
reader  insist,  after  all,  that  there  can  be  in  this  wise 
no  errors  whatever  ?  Contradictory  as  it  seems,  have 
we  not,  after  all,  put  our  judgments  into  a  position 
whence  escape  for  us  is  impossible  ?  If  every  judg- 
ment is  thus  by  its  nature  bound  up  in  a  closed  cir- 
cle of  thought,  with  no  outlook,  can  any  one  come 
afterwards  and  give  it  an  external  object  ?  Perhaps, 
then,  there  is  a  way  out  of  our  difficulty  by  frankly 
saying  that  our  thoughts  may  be  neither  truths  nor 
errors  beyond  themselves,  but  just  occurrences,  with 
a  meaning  wholly  subjective. 

We  desire  the  reader  to  try  to  realize  this  view  of 
total  relativity  once  more  in  the  form  in  which,  with 
all  its  inherent  absurdities,  it  now  comes  back  to  us 
for  the  last  time.  It  says,  "  Every  judgment,  A  is 
B,  in  fact  does  agree  and  can  agree  only  with  its 
own  object,  which  is  present  in  mind  when  it  is  made. 
With  no  external  object  can  it  agree  or  fail  to  agree. 
It  stands  alone,  with  its  own  object.  It  has  neither 
truth  nor  error  beyond  itself.  It  fulfills  all  its  inten- 
tions, and  is  true,  if  it  agrees  with  what  was  present 
to  it  when  it  was  thought.  Only  in  this  sense  is 
there  any  truth  or  falsity  possible  for  our  thought." 


THE   POSSIBILITY   OF  ERROR.  421 

But  once  more,  this  inviting  way  out  of  the  diffi- 
culty needs  only  to  be  tried  to  reveal  its  own  contra- 
dictions. The  thought  that  says,  "  No  judgment  is 
true  beyond  itself,"  is  that  thought  true  beyond  it- 
self or  not  ?  If  it  is  true  beyond  itself,  then  we  have 
the  possibility  of  other  truth  than  the  merely  subjec- 
tive or  relative  truth.  If  it  is  false,  then  equally  we 
have  objective  falsity.  If  it  is  neither  true  nor  false, 
then  the  doctrine  of  relativity  has  not  been  affirmed 
at  all  as  a  truth.  One  sets  up  an  idea  of  a  world  of 
separate,  disorganized  thoughts,  and  then  says,  "  Each 
of  them  deals  only  with  its  own  object,  and  they  have 
no  unity  that  could  make  them  true  or  false."  But 
still  this  world  that  one  thus  sets  up  must  be  the 
true  world.  Else  is  there  no  meaning  in  the  doc- 
trine of  relativity.  Twist  as  one  will,  one  gets  not 
out  of  the  whirlpool  of  thought.  Error  must  be  real, 
and  yet,  as  common  sense  arranges  these  judgments 
and  their  relations  to  one  another,  error  cannot  be 
real.  There  is  so  far  no  escape. 

The  perfectly  general  character  of  the  argument 
must  be  understood.  One  might  escape  it  if  it  ap- 
plied to  any  one  class  of  errors  only.  Then  one 
would  say :  "  In  fact,  the  class  of  cases  in  question 
may  be  cases  that  exclude  the  possibility  of  both 
truth  and  error."  But  no,  that  cannot  be  urged 
against  us,  for  our  argument  applies  equally  to  all 
possible  errors.  In  short,  either  no  error  at  all  is 
possible,  or  else  there  must  be  possible  an  infinite 
mass  of  error.  For  the  possibilities  of  thought  being 
infinite,  either  all  thought  is  excluded  once  for  all 
from  the  possibility  of  error,  or  else  to  every  possi- 


422         THE   RELIGIOUS  ASPECT   OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

ble  truth  there  can  be  opposed  an  infinite  mass  of 
error.  All  this  infinite  mass  is  at  stake  upon  the 
issue  of  our  investigation.  Total  relativity,  or  else 
an  infinite  possibility  of  truth  and  error ;  that  is 
the  alternative  before  us.  And  total  relativity  of 
thought  involves  self-contradiction. 

Every  way  but  one  has  been  tried  to  lead  us  out 
of  our  difficulty.  Shall  we  now  give  up  the  whole 
matter,  and  say  that  error  plainly  exists,  but  baffles 
definition  ?  This  way  may  please  most  people,  but 
the  critical  philosophy  knows  of  no  unanswerable 
problem  affecting  the  work  of  thought  in  itself  con- 
sidered. Here  we  need  only  patience  and  reflection, 
and  we  are  sure  to  be  some  day  rewarded.  And  in- 
deed our  solution  is  not  far  off,  but  very  nigh  us. 
We  have  indicated  it  all  along.  To  explain  how 
one  could  be  in  error  about  his  neighbor's  thoughts, 
we  suggested  the  case  where  John  and  Thomas 
should  be  present  to  a  third  thinker  whose  thought 
should  include  them  both.  We  objected  to  this  sug- 
gestion that  thus  the  natural  presupposition  that  John 
and  Thomas  are  separate  self-existent  beings  would 
be  contradicted.  But  on  this  natural  presupposition 
neither  of  these  two  subjects  could  become  object  to 
the  other  at  all,  and  error  would  here  be  impossible. 
Suppose  then  that  we  drop  the  natural  presuppo- 
sition, and  say  that  John  and  Thomas  are  both  actu- 
ally present  to  and  included  in  a  third  and  higher 
thought.  To  explain  the  possibility  of  error  about 
matters  of  fact  seemed  hard,  because  of  the  natural 
postulate  that  time  is  a  pure  succession  of  separate 
moments,  so  that  the  future  is  now  as  future  non-ex- 


THE  POSSIBILITY   OF  ERROR.  423 

istent,  and  so  that  judgments  about  the  future  lack 
rjeal  objects,  capable  of  identification.  Let  us  then 
drop  this  natural  postulate,  and  declare  time  once 
for  all  present  in  all  its  moments  to  an  universal 
all-inclusive  thought.  And  to  sum  up,  let  us  over- 
come all  our  difficulties  by  declaring  that  all  the 
many  Beyonds,  which  single  significant  judgments 
seem  vaguely  and  separately  to  postulate,  are  pres- 
ent as  fully  realized  intended  objects  to  the  unity 
of  an  all-inclusive,  absolutely  clear,  universal,  and 
conscious  thought,  of  which  all  judgments,  true  or 
false,  are  but  fragments,  the  whole  being  at  once 
Absolute  Truth  and  Absolute  Knowledge.  Then  all 
our  puzzles  will  disappear  at  a  stroke,  and  error  will 
be  possible,  because  any  one  finite  thought,  viewed 
in  relation  to  its  own  intent,  may  or  may  not  be  seen 
by  this  higher  thought  as  successful  and  adequate  in 
this  intent. 

How  this  absolute  thought  is  to  be  related  to  in- 
dividual thoughts,  we  can  in  general  very  simply  de- 
fine. When  one  says :  "  This  color  now  before  me 
is  red,  and  to  say  that  it  is  blue  would  be  to  make  a 
blunder,"  one  represents  an  including  consciousness. 
One  includes  in  one's  present  thought  three  distinct 
elements,  and  has  them  present  in  the  unity  of  a  sin- 
gle moment  of  insight.  These  elements  are,  first, 
the  perception  of  red ;  secondly,  the  reflective  judg- 
ment whose  object  is  this  perception,  and  whose 
agreement  with  the  object  constitutes  its  own  truth; 
and,  thirdly,  the  erroneous  reflection,  TJiis  is  blue, 
which  is  in  the  same  thought  compared  with  the  per- 
ception and  rejected  as  error.  Now,  viewed  as  sep- 


424         THE   RELIGIOUS   ASPECT    OF   PHILOSOPHY. 

arate  acts  of  thought,  apart  from  the  unity  of  an  in- 
cluding thought,  these  three  elements  would  give  rise 
to  the  same  puzzles  that  we  have  been  considering. 
It  is  their  presence  in  a  higher  and  inclusive  thought 
that  makes  their  relations  plain.  Even  so  we  must 
conceive  the  relation  of  John's  thought  to  the  united 
total  of  thought  that  includes  him  and  Thomas. 
Real  John  and  his  phantom  Thomas,  real  Thomas 
and  his  phantom  John,  are  all  present  as  elements  in 
the  including  consciousness,  which  completes  the  in- 
complete intentions  of  both  the  individuals,  con- 
stitutes their  true  relations,  and  gives  the  thought 
of  each  about  the  other  whatever  of  truth  or  of 
[error  it  possesses.  In  short,  error  becomes  possible 
as  one  moment  or  element  in  a  higher  truth,  that 
is,  in  a  consciousness  that  makes  the  error  a  part  of 
itself,  while  recognizing  it  as  error. 

So  far  then  we  propose  this  as  a  possible  solution 
for  our  puzzles.  But  now  we  may  insist  upon  it  as 
the  only  possible  solution.  Either  there  is  no  such 
thing  as  error,  which  statement  is  a  fiat  self -contra- 
diction, or  else  there  is  an  infinite  unity  of  conscious 
i  thought  to  which  is  present  all  possible  truth.  For 
suppose  that  there  is  error.  Then  there  must  be  an 
infinite  mass  of  error  possible.  If  error  is  possible 
at  all,  then  as  many  errors  are  possible  as  you  please, 
since,  to  every  truth,  an  indefinite  mass  of  error  may 
be  opposed.  Nor  is  this  mere  possibility  enough. 
An  error  is  possible  for  us  when  we  are  able  to  make 
a  false  judgment.  But  in  order  that  the  judgment 
should  be  false  when  made,  it  must  have  been  false 
before  it  was  made.  An  error  is  possible  only  when 


THE   POSSIBILITY   OF   ERROR.  425 

the  judgment  in  which  the  error  is  to  be  expressed 
always  was  false.  Error,  if  possible,  is  then  eter- 
nally actual.  Each  error  so  possible  implies  a  judg- 
ment whose  intended  object  is  beyond  itself,  and  is 
also  the  object  of  the  corresponding  true  judgment. 
But  two  judgments  cannot  have  the  same  object  save 
as  they  are  both  present  to  one  thought.  For  as 
separate  thoughts  they  would  have  separate  sub- 
jects, predicates,  intentions,  and  objects,  even  as  we 
have  previously  seen  in  detail.  So  that  every  error 
implies  a  thought  that  includes  it  and  the  corre- 
sponding truth  in  the  unity  of  one  thought  with  the 
object  of  both  of  them.  Only  as  present  to  an  in- 
cluding thought  are  they  either  true  or  false.  Thus 
then  we  are  driven  to  assume  an  infinite  thought, 
judging  truth  and  error.  But  that  this  infinite 
thought  must  also  be  a  rational  unity,  not  a  mere 
aggregate  of  truths,  is  evident  from  the  fact  that 
error  is  possible  not  only  as  to  objects,  but  as  to  the 
relations  of  objects,  so  that  all  the  possible  relations 
of  all  the  objects  in  space,  in  time,  or  in  the  world 
of  the  barely  possible,  must  also  be  present  to  the 
all-including  thought.  And  to  know  all  relations  at 
once  is  to  know  them  in  absolute  rational  unity,  as 
forming  in  their  wholeness  one  single  thought. 

What,  then.,  is  an  .error  J?.  An  error,  we  reply,  is 
an  incomplete  thought,  that  to  a  higher  thought, 
which  includes  it  and  its  intended  object,  is  known 
as  having  failed  in  the  purpose  that  it  more  or  less 
clearly  had,  and  that  is  fully  realized  in  this  higher 
thought.  And  without  such  higher  inclusive  thought, 
an  assertion  has  no  external  object,  and  is  no  error. 


426         THE   RELIGIOUS  ASPECT   OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

VIII. 

If  our  argument  were  a  Platonic  dialogue,  there 
would  be  hereabouts  an  interruption  from  some  im- 
patient Thrasymachus  or  Callicles  or  Polus,  who 
would  have  been  watching  us,  threatening  and  mut- 
tering, during  all  of  the  latter  part  of  our  discussion. 
At  last,  perhaps,  o-uorpei^as  kavrov  a>o-7T€p  Orjptov,  he 
would  spring  upon  us,  and  would  say  :  "  Why,  you 
nonsense-mongers,  have  you  not  bethought  you  of 
the  alternative  that  represents  the  reality  in  this 
question  of  yours  ?  Namely,  an  error  is  an  error, 
neither  to  the  thought  that  thinks  it,  nor  of  necessity 
to  any  higher  inclusive  thought,  but  only  to  a  possi- 
ble critical  thought  that  should  undertake  afterwards 
to  compare  it  with  its  object.  An  error  is  a  thought 
such  that  if  a  critical  thought  did  come  and  compare 
it  with  its  object,  it  would  be  seen  to  be  false.  And 
it  has  an  object  for  such  a  critical  thought.  This 
critical  thought  need  not  be  real  and  actually  include 
it,  but  may  be  only  a  possible  judge  of  its  truth. 
Hence  your  Infinite  all-knower  is  no  reality,  only  a 
logical  possibility  ;  and  your  insight  amounts  to  this, 
that  if  all  were  known  to  an  all-knower,  he  would 
judge  error  to  be  mistaken.  And  so  error  is  what 
he  would  perceive  to  be  error.  What  does  all  that 
amount  to  but  worthless  tautology?" 

This  argument  of  our  Thrasymachus  is  the  only 
outwardly  plausible  objection  that  we  fear  to  the 
foregoing  analysis,  because  it  is  the  only  objection 
that  fully  expresses  the  old-established  view  of  com- 
mon sense  about  such  problems.  Though  common 


THE   POSSIBILITY    OF   ERROR.  427 

sense  never  formulates  our  present  difficulty,  com- 
mon sense  still  dimly  feels  that  to  some  possible 
(not  actual)  judge  of  truth,  appeal  is  made  when 
we  say  that  a  thing  is  false  not  merely  for  us,  but 
in  very  truth.  And  this  possible  judge  of  common 
sense  we  have  now  unhesitatingly  declared  to  be  an 
Infinite  Actuality,  absolutely  necessary  to  constitute 
the  relation  of  truth  and  error.  Without  it  there 
is  for  our  view  no  truth  or  error  conceivable.  The 
words,  This  is  true,  or  This  is  false,  mean  nothing, 
we  declare,  unless  there  is  the  inclusive  thought  for 
which  the  truth  is  true,  the  falsehood  false.  No 
barely  possible  judge,  who  would  see  the  error  if  he 
were  there,  will  do  for  us.  He  must  be  there,  this 
judge,  to  constitute  the  error.  Without  him  nothing 
but  total  subjectivity  would  be  possible ;  and  thought 
would  then  become  purely  a  pathological  phenome- 
non, an  occurrence  without  truthfulness  or  falsity, 
an  occurrence  that  would  interest  anybody  if  it 
could  be  observed;  but  that,  unfortunately,  being 
only  a  momentary  phantom,  could  not  be  observed 
at  all  from  without,  but  must  be  dimly  felt  from 
within.  Our  thought  needs  the  Infinite  Thought  in 
order  that  it  may  get,  through  this  Infinite  judge, 
the  privilege  of  being  so  much  as  even  an  error. 

This,  it  will  be  said,  is  but  reassertion.  But  how 
do  we  maintain  this  view  against  our  Thrasymachus  ? 
Our  answer  is  only  a  repetition  of  things  that  we 
have  already  had  to  say,  in  the  argument  for  what 
we  here  reassert.  If  the  judgment  existed  alone, 
without  the  inclusive  thought  to  judge  it,  then,  as  it 
existed  alone,  it  either  had  an  object,  or  had  none. 


428         THE   RELIGIOUS   ASPECT    OF   PHILOSOPHY. 

But  if  it  had  none,  it  was  no  error.  If  it  had  one, 
then  either  it  knew  what  its  object  actually  was,  or  it 
did  not  know  what  its  object  was,  or  it  partially  knew 
and  partially  did  not  know  what  its  object  actually 
was.  In  the  first  case  the  judgment  must  have  been 
an  identical  one,  like  the  judgment  A  pain  is  a  pain. 
Such  a  judgment  knows  its  own  object,  therefore  can- 
not fail  to  agree  with  it,  and  cannot  be  an  error.  If 
the  judgment  knew  not  its  own  object  at  all,  then  it 
had  no  meaning,  and  so  could  not  have  failed  to  agree 
with  the  object  that  it  had  not.  If,  however,  this 
separate  judgment  knew  its  object  enough  to  intend 
just  that  object,  but  not  enough  to  insure  agreement 
with  it,  all  our  difficulties  return.  The  possible 
judge  cannot  give  the  judgment  its  complete  object 
until  he  becomes  its  actual  judge.  Yet  as  fair  judge 
he  must  then  give  it  the  object  that  it  already  had 
without  him.  Meanwhile,  however,  the  judgment  re- 
mains in  the  unintelligible  attitude  previously  stud- 
ied at  length.  It  is  somehow  possessed  of  just  the 
object  it  intends,  but  yet  does  not  know  in  reality 
what  it  does  intend,  else  it  would  avoid  error.  Its 
object,  in  so  far  as  unknown  to  it,  is  no  object  for 
it ;  and  yet  only  in  so  far  as  the  object  is  thus  un- 
known can  it  be  erred  about.  What  helps  in  all 
this  the  barely  possible  judge?  The  actual  judge 
must  *be  there  ;  and  for  him  the  incomplete  intention 
must  be  complete.  He  knows  what  is  really  this 
judgment's  object,  for  he  knows  what  is  imperfectly 
meant  in  it.  He  knows  the  dream,  and  the  inter- 
pretation thereof.  He  knows  both  the  goal  and  the 
way  thither.  But  all  this  is,  to  the  separate  judgment 
as  such,  a  mystery. 


THE  POSSIBILITY   OF   ERROR.  429 

In  fact,  the  separate  judgments,  waiting  for  the 
possible  judge  to  test  them,  are  like  a  foolish  man 
wandering  in  a  wood,  who  is  asked  whether  he  has 
lost  his  way.  "  I  may  have  lost  it,"  he  answers. 
"But  whither  are  you  going?"  "That  I  cannot  « 
tell  ?  "  "  Have  you  no  goal  ?  "  "I  may  have,  but 
I  have  110  notion  what  it  is."  "  What  then  do  you 
mean  ByTsaying  that  you  may  have  lost  the  way  to 
this  place  that  you  are  not  seeking  ?  For  you  seem 
to  be  seeking  no  place ;  how  then  can  you  have  lost 
the  way  thither?"  "I  mean  that  some  possible 
other  man,  who  was  wise  enough  to  find  whither  I 
am  trying  to  go,  might  possibly,  in  his  wisdom,  also 
perceive  that  I  am  not  on  the  way  to  that  place.  So 
I  may  be  going  away  from  my  chosen  goal,  although 
I  am  unaware  what  goal  it  is  that  I  have  chosen." 
Such  a  demented  man  as  this  would  fairly  repre- 
sent the  meaningless  claim  of  the  separate  judgment, 
either  to  truthfulness,  or  to  the  chance  of  error. 

In  short,  though  the  partial  thought  may  be,  as 
such,  unconscious  of  its  own  aim,  it  can  be  so  uncon- 
scious only  in  case  it  is  contained  in  a  total  thought 
as  one  moment  thereof. 

It  will  be  seen  that  wherever  we  have  dealt  in  the 
previous  argument  with  the  possibility  of  error  as  a 
mere  possibility,  we  have  had  to  use  the  result  of  the 
previous  chapter  concerning  the  nature  of  possibil- 
ity itself.  The  idea  of  the  barely  possible,  in  which 
there  is  no  actuality,  is  an  empty  idea.  If  anything 
is  possible,  then,  when  we  say  so,  we  postulate  some- 
thing as  actually  existent  in  order  to  constitute  this 
possibility.  The  conditions  of  possible  error  must 


430         THE   RELIGIOUS   ASPECT   OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

be  actual.  Bare  possibility  is  blank  nothingness.  If 
the  nature  of  error  necessarily  and  with  perfect  gen- 
erality demands  certain  conditions,  then  these  con- 
ditions are  as  eternal  as  the  erroneousness  of  error 
itself  is  eternal.  And  thus  the  inclusive  thought, 
which  constitutes  the  error,  must  be  postulated  as 
existent. 

So,  finally,  let  one  try  to  affirm  that  the  infinite 
content  of  the  all-including  mind  does  not  exist,  and 
that  the  foregoing  idealism  is  a  mere  illusion  of  ours. 
He  will  find  that  he  is  involved  in  a  circle  from 
which  there  is  no  escape.  For  let  him  return  to  the 
position  of  total  relativity  and  so  say :  "  The  infi- 
nite thought  is  unreal  for  me,  and  hence  you  are 
wrong."  But  then  also  he  admits  that  we  are  right, 
for  in  affirming  this  infinite  we  affirm,  according  to 
this  doctrine  of  total  relativity  itself,  something  that 
is  just  as  true  as  it  seems  to  us  to  be  true.  The  op- 
posing argument  is  thus  at  each  moment  of  its  prog- 
ress involved  in  a  contradiction.  Or  again,  let  him 
insist  that  our  doctrine  is  not  only  relatively,  but 
really  false.  Then  however  he  will  fail  to  show  us 
what  this  real  falsity  is.  In  fact  he  says  what  all  our 
previous  examination  shows  to  mean,  this,  namely, 
that  an  infinite  thought  does  exist,  and  does  expe- 
rience the  truth,  and  compares  our  thought  with  the 
truth,  and  then  observes  this  thought  of  ours  to  be 
false,  that  is,  it  discovers  that  itself  is  non-existent. 
Whoever  likes  this  result  may  hold  it  if  he  can. 


THE   POSSIBILITY  OF   ERROR.  431 

IX. 

Now  that  our  argument  is  completed  as  an  inves- 
tigation, let  us  review  it  in  another  way.  We  started 
from  the  fact  of  Error.  That  there  is  error  is  in- 
dubitable. What  is,  however,  an  error  ?  The  sub- 
stance of  our  whole  reasoning  about  the  nature  of 
error  amounted  to  the  result  that  in  and  of  itself 
alone,  no  single  judgment  is  or  can  be  an  error. 
Only  as  actually  included  in  a  higher  thought,  that 
gives  to  the  first  its  completed  object,  and  compares 
it  therewith,  is  the  first  thought  an  error.  It  re- 
mains otherwise  a  mere  mental  fragment,  a  torso,  a 
piece  of  drift-wood,  neither  true  nor  false,  objectless, 
no  complete  act  of  thought  at  all.  But  the  higher 
thought  must  include  the  opposed  truth,  to  which 
the  error  is  compared  in  that  higher  thought.  The 
higher  thought  is  the  whole  truth,  of  which  the  error 
is  by  itself  an  incomplete  fragment. 

Now,  as  we  saw  with  this  as  a  starting-point,  there 
is  no  stopping-place  short  of  an  Infinite  Thought. 
The  possibilities  of  error  are  infinite.  Infinite  then 
must  be  the  inclusive  thought.  Here  is  this  stick, 
this  brickbat,  this  snow-flake :  there  is  an  infinite 
mass  of  error  possible  about  any  one  of  them,  and 
notice,  not  merely  possible  is  it,  but  actual.  All  the 
infinite  series  of  blunders  that  you  could  make  about 
them  not  only  would  be  blunders,  but  in  very  truth 
now  are  blunders,  though  you  personally  could  never 
commit  them  all.  You  cannot  in  fact  make,  a  truth 
or  a  falsehood  by  your  thought.  You  only  find  one. 
From  all  eternity  that  truth  was  true,  that  falsehood 


432         THE   RELIGIOUS   ASPECT   OF   PHILOSOPHY. 

false.  Very  well  then,  that  infinite  thought  must 
somehow  have  had  all  that  in  it  from  the  beginning. 
If  a  man  doubts  it,  let  him  answer  our  previous  dif- 
ficulties. Let  him  show  us  how  he  can  make  an 
error  save  through  the  presence  of  an  actual  inclu- 
sive thought  for  which  the  error  always  was  error 
and  never  became  such  at  all.  If  he  can  do  that, 
let  him  try.  We  should  willingly  accept  the  result 
if  he  could  show  it  to  us.  But  he  cannot.  We 
have  rambled  over  those  barren  hills  already  too 
long.  Save  for  Thought  there  is  no  truth,  no  error. 
Save  for  inclusive  Thought,  there  is  no  truth,  no 
error,  in  separate  thoughts.  Separate  thoughts  as 
such  cannot  then  know  or  have  the  distinction  be- 
tween their  own  truth  and  their  own  falsity  in  them- 
selves, and  apart  from  the  inclusive  thought.  There 
is  then  nothing  of  truth  or  of  error  to  be  found  in 
the  world  of  separate  thoughts  as  such.  All  the 
thoughts  are  therefore  in  the  last  analysis  actually 
true  or  false,  only  for  the  all-including  Thought,  the 
I  Infinite. 

We  could  have  reached  the  same  result  had  we 
set  out  from  the  problem,  What  is  Truth?  We 
chose  not  to  do  so  because  our  skepticism  had  the 
placid  answer  ready  :  "  No  matter  what  truth  is,  for 
very  likely  there  is  little  or  no  truth  at  all  to  be  had. 
Why  trouble  one's  mind  to  define  what  a  fairy  or  a 
brownie  is  ?  "  "  Very  well,  then,"  we  said  to  our 
skepticism,  "  if  that  is  thy  play,  we  know  a  move  that 
thou  thinkest  not  of.  We  will  not  ask  thee  of  truth, 
if  thou  thinkest  there  is  none.  We  will  ask  thee  of 
error,  wherein  thou  revelest."  And  our  skepticism 


THE   POSSIBILITY   OF   ERROR.    '  433 

very  cheerfully,  if  somewhat  incoherently,  answers, 
that,  "  if  there  be  little  or  no  truth  here  below,  there 
is  at  least  any  amount  of  error,  which  as  skeptics  we 
have  all  been  detecting  ever  since  we  first  went  to 
school."  "  We  thank  thee  for  that  word,  oh  friend, 
but  now,  what  is  an  error?"  Blessed  be  Socrates 
for  that  question.  Upon  that  rock  philosophy  can, 
if  it  wants,  build  we  know  not  yet  how  much. 

It  is  enough  for  the  moment  to  sum  up  the  truth 
that  we  have  found.  It  is  this :  "  All  reality  must 
be  present  to  the  Unity  of  the  Infinite  Thought." 
There  is  no  chance  of  escape.  For  all  reality  is  re- 
ality because  true  judgments  can  be  made  about  it. 
And  all  reality,  for  the  same  reason,  can  be  the  ob- 
ject of  false  judgments.  Therefore,  since  the  false 
and  the  true  judgments  are  all  true  or  false  as  pres- 
ent to  the  infinite  thought,  along  with  their  objects, 
no  reality  can  escape.  You  and  I  and  all  of  us,  all 
good,  all  evil,  all  truth,  all  falsehood,  all  things  ac- 
tual and  possible,  exist  as  they  exist,  and  are  known 
for  what  they  are,  in  and  to  the  absolute  thought ; 
are  therefore  all  judged  as  to  their  real  character  at 
this  everlasting  throne  of  judgment. 

This  we  have  found  to  be  true,  because  we  tried 
to  doubt  everything.  We  shall  try  to  expound  in 
the  coming  chapter  the  religious  value  of  the  concep- 
tion. We  can  however  at  once  see  this  in  it :  The 
Infinite  Thought  must,  knowing  all  truth,  include  also 
a  knowledge  of  all  wills,  and  of  their  conflict.  For 
him  all  this  conflict,  and  all  the  other  facts  of  the 
moral  world,  take  place.  He  then  must  know  the 
outcome  of  the  conflict,  that  Moral  Insight  of  our 

28 


434         THE   RELIGIOUS  ASPECT   OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

first  book.  In  him  then  we  have  the  Judge  of  our 
ideals,  and  the  Judge  of  our  conduct.  He  must  know 
the  exact  value  of  the  Good  Will,  which  for  him, 
like  all  other  possible  truth,  must  be  an  actually  re- 
alized Fact.  And  so  we  cannot  pause  with  a  simply 
theoretical  idealism.  Our  doctrine  is  practical  too. 
We  have  found  not  only  an  infinite  Seer  of  physical 
facts,  but  an  infinite  Seer  of  the  Good  as  well  as  of 
the  Evil.  He  knows  what  we  have  and  what  we 
lack.  In  looking  for  goodness  we  are  in  no  wise 
looking  for  what  the  real  world  does  not  contain. 

This,  we  say,  we  have  found  as  a  truth,  because 
we  tried  to  doubt  everything.  We  have  taken  the 
wings  of  the  morning,  and  we  have  fled ;  but  be- 
hold, we  are  in  the  midst  of  the  Spirit.  Truly  the 
words  that  some  people  have  thought  so  fantastic 
ought  henceforth  to  be  put  in  the  text-.books  as  com- 
monplaces of  logical  analysis :  - 

I  "  They  reckon  ill  that  leave  me  out ; 
When  me  they  fly,  I  am  the  wings, 
I  am  the  doubter  and  the  doubt."  — 

Everything  finite  we  can  doubt,  but  not  the  Infinite. 
(That  eludes  even  our  skepticism.  The  wo»ld-build- 
ers,  and  the  theodicies  that  were  to  justify  them,  we 
|  could  well  doubt.  The  apologetic  devices  wearied 
us.  All  the  ontologies  of  the  realistic  schools  were 
just  pictures,  that  we  could  accept  or  reject  as  we 
'chose  by  means  of  postulates.  We  tried  to  escape 
them  all.  We  forsook  all  those  gods  that  were  yet 

•  no  gods ;  but  here  we  have  found  something  that 
abides,  and  waxes  not  old,  something  in  which  there 

/  is  no  variableness,  neither  shadow  of  turning.     No 


THE  POSSIBILITY   OF  ERROR.  435 

power  it  is  to  be  resisted,  no  plan-maker  to  Le  foiled 
by  fallen  angels,  nothing  finite,  nothing  striving, 
seeking,  losing,  altering,  growing  weary  ;  the  All- 
Enfolder  it  is,  and  we  know  its  name.  Not  Heart, 
nor  Love,  though  these  also  are  in  it  and  of  it ; 
Thought  it  is,  and  all  things  are  for  Thought,  and  in 
it  we  live  and  move. 


CHAPTER  XII. 

THE   RELIGIOUS   INSIGHT. 

If  them  betake  thyself  to  the  ever-living  and  abiding  Truth,  the  de- 
sertion or  death  of  a  friend  shall  not  make  thee  sad.  —  Imitation  of 
Christ. 

Cum  contra  sapiens,  quatenus  ut  talis  consideratur,  vix  animo  mo- 
vetur,  sed  sui  et  Dei  et  rerum  aeterna  quadam  necessitate  conscius, 
nunquam  esse  desinit,  sed  semper  vera  animi  acquiescentia  potitur.  — 
SPINOZA,  Ethica. 

WE  are  in  a  new  world  of  Divine  Life.  The  dark 
world  of  the  powers  has  passed  away  from  our 
thought.  Here  is  the  Eternal,  for  which  all  these 
powers  exist,  in  which  they  dwell.  Here  we  are  in 
the  presence  of  the  Ideal  Judge  who  knows  all  Good 
and  Evil.  From  the  other  side  the  world  as  we  ap- 
proached it  had  seemed  so  restless,  so  disheartening, 
so  deaf.  The  world  of  our  postulates  was  a  brighter 
one  only  because  we  determined  to  make  it  so.  But 
there  was  something  lonesome  in  the  thought  that 
the  postulates  got,  as  answer  from  the  real  world, 
only  their  own  echo,  and  not  always  that.  Their 
world  was  rather  their  own  creation  than  an  exter- 
nal something  that  gave  them  independent  support. 
Sometimes  there  seemed  to  be  nothing  solid  that 
could  echo  back  anything  at  all.  Now  we  seem  to 
look  upon  a  truth  that  satisfies  indeed  no  selfish 
longings  of  ours,  no  whims  of  theological  tradition, 


THE  RELIGIOUS  INSIGHT.  437 

no  demands  of  our  personal  narrow  lives.    We  shall 

not  learn  in  this  way  who  is  first  in  the  kingdom  of 

heaven,  nor  how  the  dead  are  raised,  nor  any  answer 

to  any  other  special  demand  of  any  set  of  men.    We 

\  learn,  however,  this  at  least :  All  truth  is  known  to 

\  One  Thought,  and  that  Infinite.     What  does  that 

imply  ?     Let  us  see. 

I. 

Our  argument  is  somewhat  near  to  the  thought 
that  partially  satisfied  St.  Augustine  when  he  found 
it  in  his  Plato.  That  there  should  be  a  truth  at  all 
implies,  we  have  seen,  that  there  should  be  an  Infi- 
nite Truth,  known  to  an  Infinite  Thought ;  or,  in 
other  words,  that  all  is  for  thought,  and  without 
thought  is  nothing  that  is.  We  also  are  a  part  of 
this  infinite  thought.  We  know  not  yet  more  of  the 
nature  of  this  thought,  save  that  it  must  be  eternal, 
all-embracing,  and  One.  What  then  shall  we  be 
able  further  to  say  about  it? 

To  answer  would  be  to  expound  a  system  of  phi- 
losophy. But  we  must  limit  ourselves  here  to  the 
necessary.  And  so,  for  the  first,  we  shall  try  to 
point  out  what  this  ideal  and  infinite  life  of  thought 
that  we  have  found  as  the  eternal  truth  of  things 
cannot  be  expected  to  accomplish  for  the  purposes 
of  our  religion,  and  then  to  consider  what  we  may 
nevertheless  dare  to  hope  from  it. 

It  cannot  be  expected  to  furnish  us  an  a  priori 
knowledge  of  any  fact  of  experience,  of  any  particu- 
lar law  of  nature,  of  the  destiny  of  any  one  finite  be- 
ing. All  that  remains  just  as  dark  as  it  was  before. 


438         THE   RELIGIOUS   ASPECT    OF    PHILOSOPHY. 

We  neither  rejoice  in  this  result,  nor  lament  it.  No- 
body who  wanders  into  the  ideal  world  may  expect 
to  find  it  ordered  for  his  individual  advantage  ;  nor 
need  he  try  to  find  there  good  investments  for  his 
money.  The  Infinite  does  not  wait  for  his  individ- 
ual approval ;  although  morally  speaking  he  may  do 
well  to  get  the  approval  of  the  Infinite.  The  Infi- 
nite was  not  elected  to  office  by  his  vote,  and  he 
may  not  impeach  it  for  disregard  of  his  humble  pe- 
titions for  good  things,  nor  threaten  it  with  want  of 
confidence  because  it  does  not  secure  passage  for  his 
private  bills.  In  so  far  as  to  say  this  is  to  condemn 
the  Real,  we  unhesitatingly  do  so.  But  then,  as  we 
saw  in  our  ethical  discussion,  the  moral  insight  is  not 
so  much  concerned  with  private  bills,  as  with  certain 
greater  matters.  If  the  moral  insight  wants  relig- 
ious support,  possibly  the  failure  of  all  these  per- 
sonal concerns  of  ours  to  find  any  hint  of  response 
from  the  Absolute,  may  not  render  impossible  the 
ethical  undertakings  of  the  human  spirit.  If  as  in- 
dividuals we  must  hear  the  dreadful  words  from  the 
spirit  of  nature  :  Du  gleichst  dem  Geist  den  du 
begreifst,  nicJit  mir  ;  still  it  is  possible  that  with  a 
higher  insight,  looking  upon  this  same  spirit  in  its 
eternal  and  inmost  nature,  we  may  yet  come  with 
full  reason  at  last  to  say  :  ErJiabner  Geist,  du  gabst 
mir,  gabst  mir  alles,  warum  ich  bat.  For  there  are 
demands  and  demands.  Man,  as  lover,  demands  suc- 
cess in  love,  and  the  course  of  the  world  may  thwart 
him  ;  as  toiler,  he  demands  for  himself  personal  im- 
mortality, and  the  course  of  the  world  may  care 
naught  for  his  individual  life  ;  as  bereaved,  as 


THE  RELIGIOUS  INSIGHT.  439 

mourner  over  his  dead,  he  may  demand  for  his  loved 
ones  also  this  immortality,  and  the  course  of  the 
world  may  leave  the  fate  of  all  his  loved  ones  mys- 
terious forever ;  as  lover  of  mankind,  he  may  de- 
mand an  infinite  future  of  blessed  progress  for  his 
race,  and  the  law  of  the  dissipation  of  energy  may 
give  him  the  only  discoverable  physical  answer  to 
his  demand ;  as  just  man,  he  may  cry  aloud  that  evil 
shall  cease  from  among  men,  and  the  wicked  may 
still  laugh  in  triumph  unpunished.  And  yet  for  all 
this  he  may  find  some  higher  compensation.  Agnos- 
tic as  he  will  remain  about  all  the  powers  of  this 
world,  about  the  outcome  of  all  finite  processes,  he 
will  take  comfort  in  the  assurance  that  an  Infinite 
Reason  is  above  all  and  through  all,  embracing 
everything,  judging  everything,  infallible,  perfect. 
To  this  Thought  he  may  look  up,  saying :  "  Thou 
All-Knowing  One  seest  us,  what  we  are,  and  how  we 
strive.  Thou  knowest  our  frame,  and  rememberest 
that  we  are  as  dust.  In  thy  perfection  is  our  Ideal. 
That  thou  art,  is  enough  for  our  moral  comfort. 
That  thou  knowest  our  evil  and  our  good,  that  gives 
us  our  support  in  our  little  striving  for  the  good. 
Not  worthless  would  we  be  in  thy  sight ;  not  of  the 
vile,  the  base,  the  devilish  party  in  the  warfare  of 
this  world.  Thou  that  judgest  shalt  say  that  we, 
even  in  our  poor  individual  lives,  are  better  than 
naught.  Thou  shalt  know  that  in  our  weakness  and 
blindness,  in  our  pain  and  sorrow,  in  our  little  days, 
in  our  dark  world,  ignorant  as  to  the  future,  con- 
fused with  many  doubts,  beset  with  endless  tempta- 
tions, full  of  dread,  of  hesitation,  of  sloth,  we  yet 


~f440         THE   RELIGIOUS   ASPECT   OF   PHILOSOPHY. 

sought,  such  as  we  were,  to  be  in  our  own  fashion 
like  thee ;  to  know  the  truth  as  thou  knowest  it,  to 
be  full  of  higher  life  as  thou  art  full,  to  be  above 
strife  as  thou  art  above  it,  to  be  of  one  Spirit  as 
thou  art  One,  to  be  perfect  as  thou  art  perfect.  This 
thou  shalt  see  in  us,  and  this  record  shall  be  eternal, 
like  our  knowledge.  In  thee  what  we  vaguely  aim 
to  conceive  is  clear  light.  In  thee  the  peace  that  we 
strive  to  find  is  experienced.  And  when  we  try  to  do 
right,  we  know  that  thou  seest  both  our  striving  and 
our  successes  and  our  failures.  And  herein  we  have 
comfort.  We  perish,  but  thou  endurest.  Ours  is 
not  thy  eternity.  But  in  thy  eternity  we  would  be 
remembered,  not  as  rebels  against  the  good,  but  as 
doers  of  the  good ;  not  as  blots  on  the  face  of  this 
part  of  thy  infinite  reality,  but  as  healthy  leaves  that 
flourished  for  a  time  on  the  branches  of  the  eternal 
tree  of  life,  and  that  have  fallen,  though  not  into 
forgetfulness.  For  to  thee  nothing  is  forgotten." 

This  thought,  of  the  Judge  that  never  ceases  to 
think  of  us  and  of  all  things,  never  changes,  never 
mistakes,  and  that  knows  the  Good  simply  because 
that  Good  is  an  element  of  the  Truth  —  perhaps  this 
can  sustain  us  when  all  else  fails.  Nothing  but  this 
may  be  certain  ;  but  this,  if  it  be  not  all  that  some 
people  have  sought,  may  be  a  help  to  us.  This  Re- 
ligion may  have  no  such  hot  little  fires  on  its  altars 
i  as  we  at  first  longed  for ;  but  then  it  is  a  very  old 
objection  to  the  stars  to  say  that  they  bake  us  no 
bread,  and  only  glitter  up  there  in  the  dark  to  be 
looked  at.  Yet  even  the  stars  are  worth  something 
to  us. 


THE  RELIGIOUS  INSIGHT.  441 

II. 

But  if  we  leave  these  limitations  of  our  view,  and 
pass  to  its  positive  religious  value,  our  first  sense  is 
one  of  joy  and  freedom  to  find  that  our  long  sought 
ideal  of  a  perfect  unity  of  life  is  here  attained.  Let 
us  look  away  for  a  moment  from  our  finite  existence, 
with  its  doubts  and  its  problems,  to  the  conception 
of  that  infinite  life.  In  that  life  is  all  truth,  fully 
present  in  the  unity  of  one  eternal  moment.  The 
world  is  no  mass  of  separate  facts,  stuck  one  to  an- 
other in  an  external  way,  but,  for  the  infinite,  each 
fact  is  what  it  is  only  by  reason  of  its  place  in  the 
infinite  unity.  The  world  of  life  is  then  what  we 
desired  it  to  be,  an  organic  total ;  and  the  individ- 
ual selves  are  drops  in  this  ocean  of  the  absolute 
truth. 

Thus  then,  seen  in  the  light  of  this  our  result, 
the  human  tasks  that  we  sketched  in  our  ethical 
discussion  find  their  place  in  the  objective  world. 
Now,  and  in  fact  for  the  first  time,  we  can  see  what 
we  were  really  trying  to  accomplish  through  our 
ideal.  We  were  trying  in  a  practical  way  to  real- 
ize what  we  now  perceive  to  be  the  fullness  of  the 
life  of  God.  So  that  the  one  highest  activity,  in 
which  all  human  activities  were  to  join,  is  known  to 
us  now  as  the  progressive  realization  by  men  of  the  \ 
eternal  life  of  an  Infinite  Spirit.  So  whereas  we 
formerly  had  to  say  to  men :  Devote  yourselves  to 
art,  to  science,  to  the  state,  or  to  any  like  work  that 
does  tend  to  organize  your  lives  into  one  life,  we 
may  now  substitute  one  absolute  expression  for  all 


442         THE   RELIGIOUS   ASPECT    OF   PHILOSOPHY. 

those  accidental  expressions,  and  may  say  :  Devote  & 
yourselves   to  losing  your  lives  in  the  divine  life. 
For  all  these  special  aims  that  we  have  mentioned 
are  but  means  of  accomplishing  the  knowledge  of 
the  fullness  of  the  truth.     And  Truth  is  God. 

Now  this  precept  is  no  barren  abstraction.  It 
means  to  take  hold  of  every  act  of  life,  however 
humble  and  simple.  "  Where  art  thou,  O  man  ?  " 
our  ideal  says  to  us.  "  Art  thou  not  in  God  ?  To 
whom  dost  thou  speak?  With  whom  dost  thou  walk? 
What  life  is  this  in  whose  midst  thou  livest  ?  What 
are  all  these  things  that  thou  seemest  to  touch? 
Whose  is  all  this  beauty  that  thou  enjoyest  in  art, 
this  unity  that  thou  seekest  to  produce  in  thy  state, 
this  truth  that  thou  pursuest  in  thy  thought  ?  All 
this  is  in  God  and  of  God.  Thou  hast  never  seen, 
or  heard,  or  touched,  or  handled,  or  loved  anything 
but  God.  Know  this  truth,  and  thy  life  must  be 
transformed  to  thee  in  all  its  significance.  Serve 
the  whole  God,  not  the  irrationally  separate  part 
that  thy  delusions  have  made  thee  suppose  to  be  an 
independent  thing.  Live  out  thy  life  in  its  full 
meaning  ;  for  behold,  it  is  God's  life."  * 

So,  as  it  seems,  the  best  that  we  could  have  wished 
from  the  purely  moral  side  is  attained.  The  Di- 
vine Thought  it  is  that  actually  accomplishes  what 
we  imperfectly  sought  to  attain,  when  we  defined 
for  ourselves  Duty.  In  the  Divine  Thought  is  per- 
fectly and  finally  realized  the  Moral  Insight  and  the^ 
Universal  Will  of  our  ethical  discussion.  And  this 
insight  and  will  are  not  realized  as  by  some  Power, 
that  then  should  set  about  to  accomplish  their  ful- 


THE  RELIGIOUS  INSIGHT.  443 

fillment  externally.  But  in  the  infinite,  where  all  is 
eternally  complete,  the  insight  is  both  present  and 
fulfilled ;  the  universal  will  gets  what  it  seeks. 
There  is  no  lack  there,  nor  hesitation,  nor  striving, 
nor  doubt,  nor  weariness ;  but  all  is  eternally  per- 
fect triumph. 

Now  this,  though  it  sounds  mystical  enough  to 
our  untrained  common  sense,  is  no  mere  poetry  of 
thought.  It  is  the  direct  philosophical  outcome  of 
what  we  have  found  by  a  purely  logical  process. 
The  driest  thought,  the  simplest  fragment  of  ration- 
ality, involves  this  absolute,  infinite,  and  perfect 
thought.  And  this  it  involves  because  it  involves 
the  possibility  of  .error,  and  because,  as  separate  from 
the  infinite,  this  possibility  of  error  in  a  single  thought 
becomes  unintelligible  and  contradictory.  We  did 
all  that  we  could  to  escape  this  conclusion.  We 
wandered  in  the  thickets  of  confusion  and  contra- 
diction, until  there  was  no  chance  of  finding  there  a 
further  pathway.  And  then  we  turned  to  see,  and 
behold,  God  was  in  this  place,  though  we  had  known 
it  not.  The  genuine  God  that  we  thus  found  was  no 
incomplete,  struggling  God,  whom  we  might  pity  in 
his  conflict  with  evil,  but  the  all-embracing  thought, 
in  which  the  truth  is  eternally  finished.  And  this 
God  it  is  that  we  now  see  as  the  complete  realization  ^r 
of  our  own  ideal,  as  of  all  worthy  ideals. 

For  consider  if  you  will  this  element  in  our  con- 
ception of  this  Thought.  Can  this  infinite  know  it- 
self as  imperfect,  or  as  not  possessing  some  object 
that  it  knows  to  be  good  ?  This  is  impossible,  and 
doubly  so.  Not  only  does  the  conception  of  an  In- 


444         THE   RELIGIOUS   ASPECT   OF   PHILOSOPHY. 

finite,  in  which  and  for  which  are  all  things,  wholly 
exclude  the  possibility  of  any  good  thing  beyond 
the  Infinite  itself,  but  also  in  still  another  way  does 
the  same  truth  appear.  For  if  you  suppose  that  this 
infinite  thought  desires  some  perfection  G,  that  it 
has  not,  then  either  it  is  right  in  supposing  this  per- 
fection to  be  truly  desirable,  or  it  is  wrong.  In 
either  case  the  previous  argument  of  Chapter  XI. 
shows  us  that  the  truth  or  the  falsity  of  this  judg- 
ment of  desire  about  G  must  exist  as  known  truth 
or  falsity  for  a  higher  thought,  which,  including  the 
thought  that  desires,  and  itself  actually  having  this 
desired  good  thing,  compares  the  desired  object  with 
the  conception  of  the  thought  that  desires  it,  and 
judges  of  them  both.  Above  the  desire,  then,  must 
in  every  case  exist  the  satisfaction  of  the  desire  in  a 
higher  thought.  So  that  for  the  Infinite  there  can 
be  no  unsatisfied  desire.  Unsatisfied  desire  exists 
only  in  the  finite  beings,  not  in  the  inclusive  Infinite. 
The  world  then,  as  a  whole,  is  and  must  be  ab- 
solutely good,  since  the  infinite  thought  must  know 
what  is  desirable,  and  knowing  it,  must  have  present 
in  itself  the  true  objects  of  desire.  The  existence 
of  any  amount  of  pain  or  of  other  evil,  of  crime  or 
of  baseness  in  the  world  as  we  see  it,  is,  thus  viewed, 
no  evidence  against  the  absolute  goodness  of  things, 
rather  a  guaranty  thereof.  For  all  evil  viewed  ex- 
ternally is  just  an  evidence  to  us  finite  beings  that 
there  exists  something  desirable,  which  we  have  not, 
and  which  we  just  now  cannot  get.  However  stub- 
born this  evil  is  for  us,  that  has  naught  to  do  with 
the  perfection  of  the  Infinite.  For  the  infinite  did 


THE   RELIGIOUS  INSIGHT.  445 

not  make  this  evil,  but  the  evil,  together  with  the 
making  of  it,  which  indeed  was  also  in  its  separate- 
ness  evil,  —  all  this  is  a  phenomenon  for  the  infinite 
thought,  which,  in  knowing  this  evil,  merely  knows 
the  absolute  desirableness  of  that  which  it  also  pos- 
sesses, namely,  the  absolutely  good. 

We  have  used  here  an  argument  that  could  not  be 
used  in  our  study  of  the  "  World  of  Doubt."  When 
we  there  thought  evil  to  be  possible  for  the  world  as 
a  whole,  we  conceived  that  a  being  who  knew  all  the 
world  would  yet  desire  something  better.  But  what 
would  this  imply  ?  It  implies  that  this  being  would 
desire  a  state  of  things  different  from  the  existing 
one,  and  would  do  so  believing  that  state  to  be  better 
than  the  existing  one.  But  would  he  truly  know 
this  desired  state  to  be  better,  or  would  he  only  hope 
so  ?  Who  truly  knows  the  value  of  a  state  save  the 
one  that  possesses  it  ?  Knowledge  is  of  the  present. 
Therefore  this  being  would  not  really  know  the  bet- 
ter state,  unless  it  were  already  actual  for  him.  But 
in  that  case  he  would  include  not  only  the  present 
world,  but  the  perfect  world,  and  his  total  state 
could  not  be  one  of  discontent.  So  the  other  alter- 
native remains.  Our  supposed  being  would  only 
hope  the  desired  state  to  be  better  than  what  was 
real  already  for  him.  But  would  his  hope  be  a  true 
one  ?  If  so,  then  it  could  only  be  true  in  case  this 
perfection  is  already  realized  in  a  higher  thought. 
For  the  Infinite  then  the  question,  "  Is  there  any- 
thing better  than  what  exists  ?  "  must  be  nonsense. 
For  him  the  actual  and  the  possible  fall  together  in 
one  truth ;  and  this  one  truth  cannot  be  evil. 


446         THE   RELIGIOUS   ASPECT    OF   PHILOSOPHY. 

On  another  side,  our  conception  gives  us  religious 
support.  The  imperfection  of  the  purely  moral  view 
lay  in  part  in  the  fact  that  there  was  an  inner  incom- 
pleteness about  the  very  definition  of  our  ideal,  as 
well  as  a  doubt  about  its  attainability.  This  inner 
incompleteness  must  however  be  removed  in  and  for 
the  Infinite  Mind.  In  dealing  with  the  work  of  life, 
we  came  to  a  point  where  we  said,  thus  far  we  can 
see  our  way,  but  beyond  that  our  ideal  remains  in- 
complete. We  must  have  faith,  so  we  implied,  that 
if  we  attained  so  much  of  the  ideal  social  condi- 
tion, the  way  from  that  point  onward  would  become 
clear.  But  now  we  see  why  the  way  would  of  neces- 
sity become  clear  to  one  whose  knowledge  of  life 
were  broad  enough  and  deep  enough.  For  in  the 
Infinite  that  includes  all  life,  that  rests  above  all 
finite  strife  in  the  absolute  attainment  of  the  ideal, 
there  can  be  no  incompleteness,  no  torso  of  an  ideal, 
but  a  perfect  knowledge  of  what  is  most  excellent. 
Those  faint  foreshadowings  of  a  perfect  life  that  art 
and  science  and  social  work  show  to  us,  must  be  for 
the  Infinite  no  faint  foreshadowings,  but  absolute 
certainty  and  perfect  clearness.  Hence  by  our  re- 
ligious doctrine  we  get  not  merely  the  assurance  that 
such  ideals  as  we  have  are  realized  for  the  Infinite  ; 
but,  better  than  this,  we  get  our  first  full  assurance 
that  our  incomplete  ideals  have  an  actual  completion 
as  ideals.  For  we  thus  get  our  first  full  assurance 
that  there  is  in  the  highest  sense  any  definite  ideal 
at  all.  Pessimism,  as  we  have  seen,  implies  either 
doubt  about  what  the  ideal  state  is,  or  unavoidable 
lack  of  that  state.  And  the  Infinite  can  be  no  Pes- 
simist in  either  sense. 


THE   RELIGIOUS   INSIGHT.  447 

The  religious  comfort  that  a  man  can  get  from 
contemplating  all  this  truth  is  indeed  very  different 
from  the  consolation  of  the  separate  individual  as 
such  that  many  people  want  their  religion  to  give 
them.  And  this  very  fact  furnishes  us  a  good  test 
of  moral  sincerity.  The  religious  comfort  that  we 
find  is  no  comfort  save  to  the  truly  religious  spirit  in 
us.  It  says  to  us  :  "  You  that  have  declared  youf 
willingness  to  serve  moral  ideals  because  they  are 
such,  does  this  help  you  to  know,  not  of  a  goodly 
place  where  you  personally  and  individually  shall 
live  without  tears  forever  as  a  reward  for  your  ser- 
vices, but  of  an  eternal  Judge  that  respects  in  no 
whit  your  person,  before  whom  and  in  whom  you  are 
quite  open  and  perfectly  known,  who  now  and  for 
all  eternity  sees  your  good  and  your  evil,  and  esti- 
mates you  with  absolute  justice  ?  This  blaze  of  in- 
finite light  in  which  you  stand,  does  it  cheer  you  ? 
If  it  does,  then  you  are  glad  to  learn  that  above  all 
your  struggles  there  is  the  eternal  Victory,  amid  all 
your  doubts  there  is  the  eternal  Insight,  and  that 
your  highest  triumph,  your  highest  conception,  is 
just  an  atom  of  the  infinite  truth  that  all  the  time  is 
there.  But  if  all  this  is  true  of  you,  then  you  do  love 
the  ideal  for  its  own  sake.  Then  it  is  not  your  tri- 
umph that  you  seek,  but  the  triumph  of  the  Highest. 
And  so  it  is  that  you  rejoice  to  learn  how  this  that  is 
best  in  the  world  not  only  will  triumph,  but  always 
has  triumphed,  since,  as  you  now  learn,  for  God  the 
highest  good  is  thus  a  matter  of  direct  experience." 

The  writer  remembers  well,  how  some  years  since, 
while  all  this  doctrine  seemed  to  him  shrouded  in 


448         THE   RELIGIOUS  ASPECT   OF   PHILOSOPHY. 

doubt,  he  heard  a  very  thoughtful  and  pious  friend 
maintain  that  the  greatest  comfort  to  be  got  from  a 
belief  in  God  is  the  sense  that  however  much  the 
world  may  misjudge  us,  however  much  even  our  best 
and  closest  friends  may  misunderstand  us,  there  is 
one  perfect  all-knowing  Thought  that  comprehends 
us  far  better  than  we  comprehend  ourselves.  Good- 
ness is,  in  that  thought,  estimated  at  its  full  worth. 
Nothing  is  hidden  from  the  Judge.  And  what  we 
are,  He  knoweth  it  altogether.  The  present  view 
seems  to  the  author  to  meet  the  conditions  that  his 
friend  here  had  in  mind.  Theism  as  a  doctrine  that 
there  is  a  big  power  that  fights  and  beats  down 
other  powers  in  the  service  of  the  good,  is  open  to  all 
the  objections  before  suggested.  This  warrior,  why 
does  he  not  win?  This  slayer  of  evil  things,  this 
binder  of  Satan,  who  boasts  that  all  things  will  yet 
be  put  under  his  feet,  —  has  he  not  had  all  eternity 
in  which  to  put  all  things  under  his  feet,  and  has 
he  done  it  yet  ?  He  may  be  indeed  good,  but  some- 
how disaster  seems  to  pursue  him.  Religious  com- 
fort in  contemplating  him  you  can  have  if  you  be- 
lieve in  him,  but  always  you  feel  that  this  comfort  is 
shadowed  by  the  old  doubt ;  is  he  after  all  what  we 
want  him  to  be,  the  victorious  ruler  of  the  world  ? 
But  if  we  leave  the  eternally  doubtful  contemplation 
of  the  world  as  a  heap  of  powers,  and  come  to  the 
deeper  truth  of  the  world  as  Thought,  then  these 
doubts  must  disappear. 

Yet  to  show  that  this  is  true,  we  must  dwell  upon 
doubts  a  little  longer,  and  must  compare  our  present 
view  of  the  solution  of  the  problem  of  evil  with  the 
views  condemned  in  Chap.  VIII. 


THE  RELIGIOUS  INSIGHT.  449 

III. 

So  far  we  have  come  in  joyful  contemplation  of 
the  Divine  Truth.  But  now  is  there  not  a  serpent 
in  this  Eden  also  ?  We  have  been  talking  of  the  in- 
finite goodness  ;  but  after  all,  what  shall  we  still  say 
of  that  finite  "  partial  evil  "of  life?  We  seem  to 
have  somehow  proved  a  priori  that  it  must  be  "  uni- 
versal good."  For,  as  we  have  said,  in  the  Infinite 
Life  of  our  ideal  there  can  be  no  imperfection.  This, 
we  have  said,  is  the  demonstration  that  we  missed 
all  through  our  study  of  the  world  of  the  Powers. 
Since  we  approached  that  world  from  without,  and 
never  felt  the  pulse  of  its  heart's  blood,  we  had  noth- 
ing but  doubt  after  doubt  when  we  contemplated  the 
evil  that  seemed  to  be  in  it.  Our  efforts  to  explain 
evil  seemed  hollow  and  worthless.  There  might  be 
some  deeper  truth  involved  in  these  efforts  ;  but  we 
knew  it  not.  Well,  are  we  right  in  declaring  that  we 
have  altogether  overcome  our  difficulty  now  ?  Ap- 
parently we  are  as  far  as  ever  from  seeing  how  the 
partial  evil  can  be  the  universal  good ;  we  only 
show,  from  the  conception  of  the  infinite  itself,  that 
the  partial  evil  must  be  the  universal  good.  God 
must  see  how ;  and  we  know  this  because  we  know 
of  God.  More  than  this  we  seem  to  be  unable  to 
suggest. 

But  will  this  do  ?    Have  we  not  forgotten  one  ter- 

.  rible  consequence  of  our  doctrine  ?     The  partial  evil 

is  universal  good,  is  it?     There  is  no  evil?     All 

apparent  imperfection  is  an  illusion  of  our  partial 

view  ?     So  then  where  is  the  chance  to  be  in  a  free 


450         THE   RELIGIOUS  ASPECT   OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

way  and  of  our  own  choice  better  than  we  otherwise 
in  truth  should  be  ?  Is  not  the  arm  that  is  raised 
to  strike  down  wickedness  paralyzed  by  the  very 
thought  that  was  to  give  it  divine  strength  ?  This 
evil  that  I  fight  here  in  this  finite  world  is  a  delu- 
sion. So  then,  why  fight  it  ?  If  I  do  good  works, 
the  world  is  infinitely  good  and  perfect.  If  I  seem 
to  do  evil  works,  the  world  is  in  truth  no  worse. 
Seeming  good  is  not  better  than  -seeming  evil,  for  if 
it  were,  then  the  seeming  evil  would  be  a  real  defect 
in  God,  in  whose  life  is  everything.  If  I  have  never 
loved  aught  but  God,  even  so  I  have  never  hated 
aught  but  God.  It  is  all  alike.  God  does  not  need 
just  me.  Or  rather  I  may  say,  in  so  far  as  he  needs 
me  to  complete  his  infinite  truth,  he  already  has  me 
from  all  eternity.  I  have  nothing  to  do  with  the 
business,  save  to  contemplate  in  dizzy  indolence  the 
whirling  misty  masses  of  seeming  evil,  and  to  say 
with  a  sort  of  amused  reverence  that  they  look  very 
ill  and  opaque  to  me,  but  that  of  course  God  sees 
through  them  clearly  enough  somehow.  The  mist  is 
in  truth  crystalline  water,  and  he  has  so  quick  a 
sense  as  to  look  beyond  the  drops  as  easily  as  if  they 
were  in  the  calm  unity  of  a  mountain  lake.  And 
so,  my  religion  is  simply  a  contemplation  of  God's 
wisdom,  but  otherwise  an  idle  amusement. 

So  says  the  man  who  sees  only  this  superficial 
view  of  our  doctrine.  In  so  far  as,  standing  once 
more  outside  of  some  evil  thing,  we  say :  "  That 
thing  yonder  looks  bad,  but  God  must  see  it  to  be 
good,"  we  do  indeed  remain  indolent,  and  our  relig- 
ion simply  means  a  sort  of  stoical  indifference  to  the 


THE   RELIGIOUS  INSIGHT.  451 

apparent  distinction  of  good  and  evil.  This  is  in 
fact  the  proper  practical  attitude  of  even  the  most 
earnest  man  in  the  presence  of  evil  that  he  cannot 
understand  and  cannot  affect.  In  such  matters  we 
must  indeed  be  content  with  the  passive  knowledge. 
Death  and  the  unavoidable  pains  of  life,  the  down- 
fall of  cherished  plans,  all  the  cruelty  of  fate,  we 
must  learn  to  look  at  as  things  to  us  opaque,  but  to 
God,  who  knows  them  fully,  somehow  clear  and  ra- 
tional. So  regarding  them,  we  must  aim  to  get  to 
the  stage  of  stoical  indifference  about  them.  They 
are  to  us  the  accidents  of  existence.  We  have  no 
business  to  murmur  about  them,  since  we  see  that 
God,  experiencing  them,  somehow  must  experience 
them  as  elements  in  an  absolutely  perfect  life.  For 
God  we  regard  not  as  the  mysterious  power  who 
made  them,  and  who  then  may  have  been  limited  to 
the  use  of  imperfect  means,  but  as  the  absolute 
thought  that  knows  them ;  so  that,  however  inexpli- 
cable they  must  now  be  to  us,  they  are  in  themselves 
nothing  that  God  vainly  wishes  to  have  otherwise, 
but  they  are  organically  joined  with  the  rest  of  the 
glorious  Whole. 

Such  is  indeed  the  only  present  word  for  us  finite 
minds  about  many  of  the  shadows  of  seeming  evil 
that  we  have  to  behold  in  the  world  of  the  appar- 
ently external  facts.  Such  however  is  not  the  last 
word  for  us  about  the  only  evil  that  has  any  imme- 
diate moral  significance,  namely,  the  evil  that  we  see, 
not  as  an  external,  shadowy  mist,  but  as  a  present 
fact,  experienced  in  us.  Here  it  is  that  the  objector 
just  mentioned  seems  really  formidable  to  us.  But 


452        THE  RELIGIOUS   ASPECT   OF   PHILOSOPHY. 

just  here  it  is  that  we  find  the  answer  to  him.  For 
in  the  world  of  our  own  acts  we  have  a  wondrous  ex- 
perience. We  realize  evil,  we  fight  it,  and,  at  the 
same  time,  we  realize  our  fragment  of  the  perfect 
divine  life  in  the  moment  itself  of  struggling  with 
the  evil.  And  in  this  wondrous  experience  lies  the 
whole  solution  of  the  ancient  problem  of  the  existence 
of  moral  evil.  For  instance,  I  find  in  myself  a  self- 
ish impulse,  trying  to  destroy  the  moral  insight. 
Now  of  this  evil  impulse  I  do  not  say,  looking  at  it 
objectively  :  "  It  is  somehow  a  part  of  the  universal 
good ;  "  but,  in  the  moment  of  moral  action  I  make 
it,  even  in  the  very  moment  of  its  sinfulness,  a  part 
of  my  good  consciousness,  in  overcoming  it.  The 
moral  insight  condemns  the  evil  that  it  experiences  ; 
and  in  condemning  and  conquering  this  evil  it  forms 
and  is,  together  with  the  evil,  the  organic  total  that 
constitutes  the  good  will.  Only  through  this  inner 
victory  over  the  evil  that  is  experienced  as  a  con- 
quered tendency  does  the  good  will  have  its  being. 
Now  since  the  perfect  life  of  God  must  have  the  ab- 
solutely good  will,  therefore  it  also  must  be  conscious 
of  such  a  victory.  Thus  the  solution  of  our  diffi- 
culty begins  to  appear.  And  thus  we  reap  a  new 
religious  fruit  from  our  ethical  doctrine,  to  whose 
main  principles  we  must  once  more  here  refer  the 
reader. 

t  When  I  experience  the  victory  of  the  moral  in- 
sight over  the  bad  will,  I  experience  in  one  indivis- 
ible moment  both  the  partial  evil  of  the  selfish  im- 
pulse (which  in  itself  as  a  separate  fact  would  be 
wholly  bad)  and  the  universal  good  of  the  moral 


THE  RELIGIOUS  INSIGHT.  453 

victory,  which  has  its  existence  only  in  the  over- 
whelming of  the  evil.  So,  in  the  good  act,  I  experi- 
ence the  good  as  my  evil  lost  in  goodness,  as  a  rebel- 
lion against  the  good  conquered  in  the  moment  of  its 
birth,  as  a  peace  that  arises  in  the  midst  of  this  tri- 
umphant conflict,  as  a  satisfaction  that  lives  in  this 
restless  activity  of  inner  warfare.  This  child  of  inner 
strife  is  the  good,  and  the  only  moral  good,  we  know. 

What  I  here  have  present  in  me  when  I  do  a  good 
act  is  an  element  of  God's  life.  /  here  directly  ex- 
perience how  the  partial  moral  evil  is  universal 
good  ;  for  so  it  is  a  relatively  universal  good  in  me 
when,  overcoming  myself,  I  choose  the  universal 
will.  The  bad  impulse  is  still  in  me,  but  is  defeated. 
In  the  choice  against  evil  is  the  very  life  of  goodness, 
which  would  be  a  pale,  stupid  abstraction  otherwise. 
Even  so,  to  take  another  view,  in  the  overcoming  of 
our  separateness  as  individuals  lies,  as  we  saw  in  the 
previous  book,  our  sense  of  the  worth  of  the  univer- 
sal life.  And  what  we  here  experience  in  the  single 
moment  of  time,  and  in  the  narrowness  of  our  finite 
lives,  God  must  experience,  and  eternally.  In  our 
single  good  acts  we  have  thus  the  specimen  of  the 
eternal  realization  of  goodness. 

But  now  how  simple  becomes  the  answer  to  that 
terrible  suggestion  of  a  moment  since  !  How  simple 
also  the  solution  of  the  problem  of  evil !  u  If  I  want 
to  do  evil,  I  cannot,"  said  the  objector ;  "  for  God 
the  perfect  one  includes  me  with  the  rest,  and  so 
cannot  in  his  perfection  be  hurt  by  me.  Let  me  do 
what  I  will,  my  act  can  only  seem  bad,  and  cannot 
be  bad.  All  evil  is  illusion,  hence  there  is  no  moral 
difference  in  action  possible." 


454         THE  RELIGIOUS   ASPECT   OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

"  Eight  indeed,"  we  answer,  "  but  also  wrong,  be- 
cause half  the  truth.  The  half  kills,  the  whole  gives 
life.  Why  canst  thou  not  do  any  absolute  evil  ?  Be- 
cause thy  evil  intent,  which,  in  its  separateness, 
would  be  unmixed  evil,  thy  selfish  will,  thy  struggle 
against  the  moral  insight,  this  evil  will  of  thine  is  no 
lonesome  fact  in  the  world,  but  is  an  element  in  the 
organic  life  of  God.  In  him  thy  evil  impulse  forms 
part  of  a  total  good  will,  as  the  evil  impulse  of  the 
good  man  forms  an  element  in  his  realization  of 
goodness.  In  God  thy  separateness  is  destroyed, 
and  with  it  thy  sin  as  evil.  For  good  will  in  the  in- 
finite is  what  the  good  man  finds  the  good  will  to  be 
in  himself,  namely,  the  organic  total  whose  truth  is 
the  discovery  of  the  evil.  Therefore  is  God's  life 
perfect,  because  it  includes  not  only  the  knowledge 
of  thy  finite  wicked  will,  but  the  insight  into  its  truth 
as  a  moment  in  the  real  universal  will. 

If  then  thou  wert  good,  thou  wouldst  be  good  by 
including  the  evil  impulse  in  a  realization  of  its 
evil,  and  in  an  acceptance  of  the  higher  insight.  If 
thou  art  evil,  then  in  thyself,  as  separate  being,  thou 
art  condemned,  and  just  because  thy  separate  evil 
is  condemned,  therefore  is  the  total  life  of  God,  that 
includes  thee  with  thy  condemnation  and  with  the 
triumph  over  thee,  good. 

This  is  the  ground  for  the  solution  of  the  problem. 
To  go  more  into  detail :  Evil  is  for  us  of  two  classes : 
the  external  seeming  evil,  such  as  death,  pain,  or 
weakness  of  character;  and  internal  evil,  namely  the 
bad  will  itself.  Because  we  know  so  little,  there- 
fore we  can  never  tell  whether  those  externally  seen 


THE   RELIGIOUS  INSIGHT.  455 

seeming  evils  are  blessings  in  disguise,  or  expressions 
of  some  wicked  diabolical  will-power  at  work  about 
us.  Somehow  then,  we  never  know  exactly  how, 
these  seeming  great  evils  must  be  in  God  universal 
good.  But  with  regard  to  the  only  evil  that  we  know 
as  an  inward  experience,  and  so  as  a  certain  reality, 
namely,  the  Evil  Will,  we  know  both  the  existence  of 
that,  and  its  true  relation  to  universal  goodness,  be- 
cause and  only  because  we  experience  both  of  them 
first  through  the  moral  insight,  and  then  in  the  good 
act.  Goodness  having  its  very  life  in  the  insight 
and  in  its  exercise,  has  as  its  elements  the  evil  im- 
pulse and  its  correction.  The  evil  will  as  such  may 
either  be  conquered  in  our  personal  experience,  and 
then  we  are  ourselves  good ;  or  it  may  be  conquered 
dot  in  our  thought  considered  as  a  separate  thought, 
but  in  the  total  thought  to  which  ours  is  so  related, 
as  our  single  evil  and  good  thoughts  are  related  to 
the  whole  of  us.  The  wicked  man  is  no  example  of 
God's  delight  in  wickedness,  just  as  the  evil  impulse 
that  is  an  element  in  the  good  man's  goodness,  and 
a  very  real  element  too,  is  no  proof  that  the  good 
man  delights  in  evil.  As  the  evil  impulse  is  to  the 
good  man,  so  is  the  evil  will  of  the  wicked  man  to 
the  life  of  God,  in  which  he  is  an  element.  And 
just  because  the  evil  will  is  the  only  evil  that  we  are 
sure  of,  this  explanation  is  enough. 

Thus  the  distinction  between  good  and  evil  re- 
mains as  clear  as  ever.  Our  difficulty  about  the 
matter  is  removed,  not  by  any  barren  external  the- 
odicy, such  as  were  the  forms  of  guess-work  that  we 
criticised  in  a  previous  chapter,  but  by  a  plain  reflec- 


456         THE  RELIGIOUS  ASPECT   OF   PHILOSOPHY. 

tion  on  the  moral  experience  itself.  Goodness  as  a 
moral  experience  is  for  us  the  overcoming  of  experi- 
enced evil ;  and  in  the  eternal  life  of  God  the  reali- 
zation of  goodness  must  have  the  same  sort  of  or- 
ganic relation  to  evil  as  it  has  in  us.  Goodness  is 
not  mere  innocence,  but  realized  insight.  To  the 
wicked  man  we  say  :  God  is  good  because  in  think- 
ing thee  he  damns  thy  evil  impulse  and  overwhelms 
it  in  a  higher  thought  of  which  thou  art  a  part.  And 
in  so  far  as  thy  will  is  truly  evil,  thou  art  in  God 
just  as  the  evil  is  in  the  good  man  ;  thou  art  known 
only  to  be  condemned  and  overcome.  That  is  thy 
blessed  mission  ;  and  this  mission  of  evil  such  as 
thine  is  indeed  an  eternal  one.  So  that  both  things 
are  true.  The  world  is  wholly  good,  and  thou,  such 
as  thou  individually  art,  mayest  be  damnably  evil  if 
so  thou  desirest. 

We  do  not  say  then  that  evil  must  exist  to  set  the 
good  off  by  way  of  external  contrast.  That  view  we 
long  since  justly  rejected.  We  say  only  that  the 
evil  will  is  a  conquered  element  in  the  good  will,  and 
is  as  such  necessary  to  goodness.  Our  conception  of 
the  absolute  unity  of  God's  life,  and  that  conception 
alone,  enables  us  to  apply  this  thought  here.  No 
form  of  dualistic  Theism  has  any  chance  to  apply 
this,  the  only  satisfactory  theodicy.  If  God  were 
conceived  as  external  to  his  creatures,  as  a  power 
that  made  them  beyond  himself,  the  hopeless  prob- 
lems and  the  unworthy  subterfuges  of  the  older  the- 
odicies  would  come  back  to  torment  us.  As  it  is, 
the  solution  of  the  problem  of  evil  is  given  us  in  the 
directest  and  yet  in  the  most  unexpected  way. 


THE   RELIGIOUS  INSIGHT.  457 

Let  us  compare  this  solution  with  others.  Evil, 
said  one  thought,  before  expounded,  is  an  illusion  of 
the  partial  view,  as  the  shapelessness  of  the  frag- 
ment of  a  statue  is  no  disproof  of  the  real  beauty  of 
the  whole.  We  replied  in  a  previous  chapter  to  this 
notion,  by  saying  that  evil  seems  so  positive  an  ele- 
ment in  the  world  as  to  make  very  hard  this  concep- 
tion of  the  partial  evil  as  good  universally  in  the 
aesthetic  sense  in  which  shapelessness  of  parts  may 
coexist  with  a  total  beauty  of  the  statue.  For  the 
fragment  of  the  statue  is  merely  an  indifferent  bit  of 
stone  without  character.  But  the  evil  in  the  world 
seems  in  positive  crying  opposition  to  all  goodness. 
Yet  now,  in  the  moral  experience,  we  have  found  a 
wholly  different  relation  of  evil  part  to  good  whole. 
JMjLgood  act  is  good  just  because  of  the  evil  that 
exists  in  it  as  conquered  element.  Without  the  evil 
moment  actual  in  it,  the  total  act  could  be  at  best 
innocent,  not  good.  It  is  good  by  reason  of  its 
structure.  That  structure  includes  the  evil  will,  but 
so  includes  it  that  the  whole  act  is  good.  Even  so, 
as  we  declare,  God's  life  includes,  in  the  organic 
total  of  one  conscious  eternal  instant,  all  life,  and 
so  all  goodness  and  evil.  To  say  that  God  is  never- 
theless perfectly  good  is  to  say,  not  that  God  is 
innocent,  knowing  of  no  evil  whatever,  and  includ- 
ing none  ;  but  that  he  so  includes  the  evil  will  in 
the  structure  of  his  good  will,  as  the  good  man,  in 
one  indivisible  moment,  includes  his  evil  will  in  his 
good  will ;  and  that  God  is  good  only  because  he 
does  so. 

Again,  to  pass  to  another  explanation,  it  has  been 


458         THE   RELIGIOUS   ASPECT   OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

said  that  evil  exists  in  the  world  as  a  means  to  good- 
ness. We  objected  to  this  that  it  puts  the  evil  and 
the  good  first  in  separate  beings,  in  separate  acts  or 
moments,  and  then  makes  the  attainment  of  the  good 
result  dependent  on  the  prior  attainment  of  the  sep- 
arate and  independently  present  evil.  Now  all  that 
explanation  could  only  explain  and  justify  the  acts 
of  a  finite  Power,  which,  not  yet  possessing  a  given 
good  thing,  seeks  it  through  the  mediation  of  some 
evil.  In  no  wise  can  this  explanation  apply  to  God 
as  infinite.  He  is  no  finite  Power,  nor  does  he  make 
or  get  things  external  to  himself.  Hence  he  cannot 
be  said  to  use  means  for  the  attainment  of  ends. 
But  our  explanation  does  not  make  evil  a  means  to 
get  the  separate  end,  goodness.  We  say  that  the  con- 
nection is  one  of  organic  part  with  organic  whole ; 
that  goodness  has  its  life  only  in  the  instant  of  the 
discovery  and  inner  overcoming  of  the  evil  will ;  and 
that  therefore  any  life  is  good  in  which  the  evil  will 
is  present  only  as  overcome,  and  so  as  lost  in  the 
good  will.  We  appeal  to  the  moral  experience  to  il- 
lustrate how,  when  we  do  good,  the  evil  will  is  pres- 
ent as  a  real  fact  in  us,  which  yet  does  not  make  us 
as  a  whole  bad,  but  just  because  it  is  present  as  an 
overcome  element,  is,  even  for  that  very  reason,  nec- 
essary to  make  us  good.  And  we  go  on  to  say  that 
even  so  in  God  the  evil  will  of  all  who  sin  is  pres- 
ent, a  real  fact  in  the  Divine  Life,  no  illusion  in  so 
far  as  one  sees  that  it  exists  in  God  and  nowhere 
else,  but  for  that  very  reason  an  element,  and  a  nec- 
essary element,  in  the  total  goodness  of  the  Univer- 
sal Will,  which,  realized  in  God,  is  related  to  the 


THE  RELIGIOUS  INSIGHT.  459 

wills  of  the  sinners  as  the  wills  of  the  good  men  are 
related  to  their  evil  impulses. 

The  explanation  that  evil  is  needed  to  contrast 
with  goodness  has  already  been  mentioned. 

Evil  therefore,  as  a  supposed  real  fact,  separate 
from  goodness,  and  a  totally  independent  entity,  is 
and  must  be  an  illusion.  The  objections  to  this 
view  that  we  previously  urged  in  Chapter  VIII.  were 
all  applicable  to  the  world  of  powers,  which  we 
viewed  and  had  to  view  externally.  God's  life, 
viewed  internally,  as  philosophy  must  view  it,  is  not 
subject  to  these  criticisms.  And  the  moral  experi- 
ence has  taught  us  how  we  are  to  explain  the  exist- 
ence of  the  only  partial  evil  that  we  clearly  know  to 
be  even  a  partial  evil,  namely,  the  evil  will.  The  ex- 
planation is  that  the  good  act  has  its  existence  and 
life  in  the  transcending  of  experienced  present  evil. 
This  evil  must  not  be  an  external  evil,  beyond  the 
good  will,  but  must  be  experienced  in  the  same  indi- 
visible moment  in  which  it  is  transcended.  That 
this  wondrous  union  is  possible,  we  simply  find  as 
fact  in  the  moral  experience.  No  genuine  moral  good- 
ness is  possible  save  in  the  midst  of  such  inner  war- 
fare. The  absence  of  the  evil  impulse  leaves  naught 
but  innocence  or  instinct,  morally  insipid  and  color- 
less. Goodness  is  this  organism  of  struggling  ele- 
ments. Now,  as  we  declare,  in  the  infinite  and  united 
thought  of  God  this  unity  of  goodness  is  eternally 
present.  God's  life  is  this  infinite  rest,  not  apart 
from  but  in  the  endless  strife,  as  in  substance  Hera- 
clitus  so  well  and  originally  taught. 


460         THE   RELIGIOUS   ASPECT   OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

IV. 

The  problem  of  the  existence  of  evil  thus  treated 
as  our  limits  allow,  we  must  return  to  a  study  of  the 
visible  world.  That  we  formerly  refused  to  find  re- 
ligious comfort  in  that  world,  depended  upon  our 
previous  manner  of  approaching  it.  It  was,  so 
approached,  the  world  of  doubt;  but  now  it  may 
prove  no  longer  disheartening,  so  that  we  may  be 
able  to  get  in  it  a  concrete  hold  of  useful  truth.  We 
must  briefly  sketch  the  process  of  return.  Our  Infi- 
nite, once  known,  is  known  not  as  an  abstraction, 
but  as  an  immediately  actual  object  of  knowledge. 
His  then  is  this  visible  world ;  and,  knowing  the 
fact,  we  return  cheerfully  and  courageously  among 
the  facts  that  before  seemed  dead  externalities,  to 
find  his  truth  in  them.  For  our  general  belief  in  the 
infinite  rationality  of  things  is  useless  to  supersede 
any  jot  or  tittle  of  careful  scientific  study  of  the  com- 
mon world  of  experience.  Be  this  aspect  of  the  mat- 
ter well  understood.  Some  older  forms  of  idealism 
have  looked  coldly  on  experience.  Ours  does  not. 
To  us,  if  you  want  to  realize  your  ideal  you  must 
know  the  means,  you  must  study  applied  ethics  as 
well  as  the  ideal  itself  ;  and  only  from  science,  from 
hard,  dry,  careful  collection  and  collaboration  of 
facts,  from  cautious  generalizations,  from  endless  ex- 
periments, observations,  calculations,  can  mankind 
hope  to  learn  the  means  of  realizing  their  ideals.^ 
Yet  more,  only  from  exact  science  can  you  get  the 
best  concrete  examples  of  that  unity  of  conception,  f 
that  mastery  of  complex  details,  that  exhaustive  per- 


THE   RELIGIOUS   INSIGHT.  461 

faction  of  insight,  that  we  must  attribute  in  an  infi- 
nitely complete  form  to  our  all  -  embracing  Ideal 
Thought,  now  that  we  have  got  it  before  us  as  our 
Ideal.  That  all  facts  and  relations  of  facts  should 
appear  in  one  moment  of  insight  to  the  all-knowing 
thought  is  our  postulate,  and,  as  we  have  shown,  it  is 
no  mere  postulate,  but  a  necessary  and  absolute  prin- 
ciple of  philosophy.  We  must  go  to  exact  science  to 
find  illustrations  of  how  all  this  can  be  in  particular 
cases  realized.  As  the  equation  of  a  curve  expresses 
in  one  thought  all  the  properties  of  the  curve,  as  the 
law  of  a  physical  process  includes  all  the  cases  of 
that  process  under  any  of  the  supposed  conditions, 
as  a  function  of  a  variable  may  be  the  sum  of  a  long 
series  of  quantities,  each  one  of  which  is  a  derived 
function  of  the  first  multiplied  by  a  particular  coeffi- 
cient, so  that  the  one  function  is  the  united  expres- 
sion of  the  numerous  separate  functions :  even  in 
such  wise  must  the  Infinite  thought  comprehend  in 
some  supreme  highest  unity  all  the  facts  and  rela- 
tions of  facts  that  are  in  the  world  of  truth.  For 
us  then  the  highest  achievements  of  science  are  the 
dim  shadow  of  the  perfection  of  the  infinite  thought. 
And  to  science,  accordingly,  we  must  go,  not  for  the 
invention,  but  for  the  intellectual  illustration  of  our 
ideal.  And  science  we  must  treat  as  absolute  mis-  * 
tress  of  her  own  domain.  Of  the  world  as  a  whole, 
of  the  eternal  as  such,  of  infinite  past  time,  of  the 
inner  truth  of  things,  science  pretends  to  tell  and 
can  tell  nothing.  Nor  does  science  invent,  nor  yet 
can  she  prove,  her  own  postulates,  as  we  previously 
defined  them.  But  in  the  application  of  her  postu- 


462         THE   RELIGIOUS  ASPECT   OF  PHILOSOPHY. 

lates  to  the  facts,  in  the  discovery  of  particular  laws, 
science  is  almighty.  To  doubt  her  capacity  as  high- 
est judge  in  this  field  is  flagrant  contempt  of  court. 
Science  is  just  the  Infinite  Thought  as  far  as  it  is 
yet  by  us  realized  in  the  facts  of  nature.  A  priori 
we  can  realize  nothing  about  finite  facts,  save  that 
they  must  be  capable  of  rational  comprehension. 
We  know  that  the  Infinite  thinks  them,  and  this  is 
all  that  we  know  about  them.  What  they  are,  ex- 
perience must  tell  us. 

Such  then  are  some  of  the  restrictions  imposed 
upon  our  thought.  We  must  now  consider  more 
carefully  how  we  must  treat  the  scientific  postulates 
that  were  our  only  comfort  in  studying  reality  before 
we  reached  our  present  insight. 

When  we  postulated  that  the  world  must  in  the 
best  sense  satisfy  our  fundamental  intellectual  needs, 
we  assumed  what  is  necessary  for  science,  but  what 
science  itself  does  not  satisfactorily  explain.  Have 
we  now  reached  any  foundation  for  this  theoretical 
postulate  ?  We  have  in  fact  reached  one.  The  pos- 
tulate of  science  amounts  to  this,  that  the  real  con- 
nections among  facts  must  be  such  as  would  be  ra- 
tionally comprehensible  if  they  were  known.  But 
we  have  found  in  fact  that  all  facts  not  only  must 
be  rationally  comprehensible,  but  are  rationally  com- 
prehended, in  and  by  the  one  Divine  Mind.  The 
postulate  of  science  expresses  therefore  in  part  and 
as  a  mere  assumption,  what  we  now  know  as  a  whole, 
and  as  a  result  of  demonstration.  The  unity  of  the 
Divine  Thought  implies  that  all  facts,  if  we  knew 
them  well  enough,  would  appear  rationally  interde- 


THE  RELIGIOUS  INSIGHT.  463 

pendent,  reducible  to  unity,  a  total  of  realities  ex- 
pressible as  one  truth.  Just  as  in  the  one  concept  of 
the  nature  of  number  is  implied  all  the  infinite  series 
of  properties  that  a  complete  Theory  of  Numbers 
would  develop,  so  in  the  one  concept  of  the  universe, 
which  constitutes  the  Divine  Mind,  all  the  facts  of 
all  possible  experience  are  comprehended  and  are  re- 
duced to  perfect  unity.  There  must  be  then  in  fact  a 
universal  formula.  What  this  formula  is  we  do  not 
see,  and  just  because  we  do  not  see  it,  we  have  to 
look  here  and  there  in  experience  for  any  traces  of 
the  unity  and  rational  connection  of  facts.  Nor  can 
we  ever  be  sure  that  a  connection  surmised  by  us  is 
the  really  rational  connection  of  things.  A  law  dis- 
covered by  us  is  only  our  attempt  to  imitate  the  Di- 
vine Thought.  Our  attempt  may  in  a  given  case 
fail;  our  induction  may  be  mistaken.  But  the 
foundation  of  our  inductive  processes  is  the  thought 
that,  since  the  real  world  is  a  perfectly  rational  and 
united  body  of  truth,  that  hypothesis  which  reduces 
to  relatively  rational  unity  the  greatest  number  of 
facts  is  more  apt  to  represent  the  truth  of  things 
than  any  hypothesis  of  less  scope,  and  of  less  rational 
significance.  Just  because  this  natural  dualism  with 
which  we  set  out  is  a  blunder,  just  because  in  fact 
the  world  is  not  rent  in  twain  by  our  arbitrary  dis- 
tinction of  object  and  subject,  but  is  in  deepest  truth 
one  united  world,  a  single  thought ;  therefore  it  is 
that  when  we  consider  those  facts  which  we  have 
from  moment  to  moment  to  regard  as  external,  we 
can  be  assured  that  there  is  a  certain  and  not  an 
arbitrary  basis  for  our  views  about  them.  The  vis- 


464         THE   RELIGIOUS   ASPECT   OF   PHILOSOPHY. 

ible  world  becomes  again  hard  reality,  which  we  ex- 
perience and  try  to  comprehend,  just  because  we 
know  that  in  itself  this  world  is  once  for  all  compre- 
hended. 

Practically  then,  in  dealing  with  the  world  of  con- 
crete facts,  we  must  be  realistic.  It  is  our  duty,  for 
humanity's  sake,  to  study  and  to  believe  in  this  ex- 
ternal world,  to  have  faith  in  the  great  postulates  of 
common  sense,  to  use  all  the  things  of  the  world. 
But  the  basis  of  this  faith  common  sense  can  never 
find.  And  we  have  found  it  in  the  Absolute. 


V. 

Have  we  then  discovered  that  something  of  infi- 
nite religious  worth  of  which  we  went  in  quest  ?  Or 
can  we  say  that  our  life  is  in  vain  in  such  a  world  ? 
Truly  our  religious  longing  has  met  with  a  genuine 
response,  but  it  was  not  such  a  response  as  we  at 
first  expected,  nor  such  as  most  systems  appear  to 
desire.  Personal  needs  and  hopes  apart,  most  men 
who  make  systems  to  satisfy  the  impersonal  religious 
longing,  seek  to  prove  that  the  world  as  a  whole 
progresses  towards  goodness,  so  that,  in  the  great 
consummation  of  this  progress,  evil  shall  certainly 
and  finally  disappear,  leaving  the  world  as  innocent 
and  insipid  as  in  the  days  of  Eden.  Now  we  have 
found  a  thought  that  makes  this  concept  of  progress 
not  only  wholly  inapplicable  to  the  world  of  the  in- 
finite life,  but  wholly  superfluous.  If,  as  we  insisted 
above,  moral  goodness  is  not  the  absence,  but  the  or- 
ganic subordination,  of  the  evil  will,  its  overthrow  in 


THE  RELIGIOUS   INSIGHT.  465 

the  good  will,  in  which  it  is  still  actually  present 
as  subdued,  then,  whenever  the  world  contains  any 
moral  goodness,  it  also,  and  for  that  very  reason, 
contains,  in  its  organic  unity,  moral  evil.  The 
world  is  morally  good  in  spite  of  the  evil  will,  and 
yet  because  of  the  evil  will,  since,  as  every  moral  ex- 
perience shows  us,  the  good  will  is  just  this  trium- 
phant rest  in  strife  above  the  evil  will.  Therefore 
we  have  no  sympathy  with  those  who  expect  the  fu- 
ture "  salvation  "  of  the  world  as  a  whole  in  time 
through  any  all  -  pervading  process.  The  only  de- 
struction of  moral  evil  that  ever  takes  place  or  can 
take  place  is  the  transcendence  of  the  evil  will  by 
the  good  will  in  the  very  moment  of  the  life  of  the 
evil  will.  If  moral  evil  were  to  be,  as  the  older 
systems  often  expect,  absolutely  destroyed,  and  the 
world  so  freed  therefrom  that  the  evil  will  was  totally 
forgotten,  then  what  remained  would  be  no  moral 
good  any  more,  only  the  laziness  of  an  infinitely  va- 
cant life.  Not  indeed  to  set  off  the  good  by  any  ex- 
ternal contrast,  but  to  constitute  a  moment  in  the  or- 
ganic unity  of  the  good  act,  is  this  evil  in  the  world. 
And  the  whole  vast  trouble  about  understanding  its 
presence  arises  because  we  usually  separate  it  from 
the  very  unity  with  goodness  in  which  we  find  it 
whenever  we  consciously  do  right  ourselves.  Then 
when  so  separated,  as  we  separated  it  in  a  former 
chapter,  moral  evil,  viewed  as  an  external  opaque 
fact,  is  inexplicable,  disheartening,  horrible.  Only 
when  we  do  right  ourselves  do  we  practically  get  the 
solution  of  the  problem.  Only  the  moral  man  knows 
how  and  why  evil  exists.  For  in  him  the  evil  will 

30 


466  THE   RELIGIOUS   ASPECT    OF    PHILOSOPHY. 

is  an  essential  element  of  his  goodness.  The  conflicts 
of  morality  are  and  must  be  eternal. 

Our  present  explanation  of  evil  in  the  world  is, 
we  have  seen,  the  only  one  that  can  both  give  us 
the  absolute  religious  comfort,  and  save  us  from  the 
terrible  moral  paralysis  involved  in  destroying,  for 
the  Infinite,  the  distinction  between  good  and  evil. 
The  moral  experience  itself  contains  the  miracle  of 
this  solution  in  the  simplest  and  clearest  shape. 
And  it  relieves  us  of  any  need  to  long  for  an  abso- 
lute peace.  For  in  it  the  distinction  of  good  and 
evil  is  the  sharpest,  the  significance  of  the  strife  is 
the  most  vivid,  at  the  very  instant  when,  in  the  strife, 
the  evil  will,  present  and  real  still,  is  yet  conquered 
by  the  good  will,  and  so  lost  in  the  universal  good- 
ness of  the  total  good  act.  The  distinction  of  good 
will  and  evil  will  becomes  thus  the  greatest  possible ; 
and  yet  only  through  the  reality  of  this  distinction  in 
the  unity  of  the  moral  life  is  goodness  present  and 
triumphant.  Progress  in  this  world  as  a  whole  is 
therefore  simply  not  needed.  The  good  is  eternally 
gained  even  in  and  through  the  evil.  How  far  the 
actual  process  of  evolution  may  in  our  part  of  the 
universe  extend  is  a  matter  for  empirical  science. 

But  our  own  ideal  of  human  life  as  a  "  progres- 
sive realization  of  the  good,"  —  what  of  that  ?  The 
answer  is  obvious.  The  good  will  that  is  in  us  as  a 
temporal  fact,  not  being  yet  fully  realized  or  trium- 
phant in  us  as  we  are  in  ourselves  as  mere  finite  be- 
ings, must  aim  at  complete  expression  of  itself  in 
time  and  in  us,  and  through  us  in  those  whom  we 
seem  to  influence.  For  oulyJ/n_$Q~-#eekiny  to  per- 


THE  RELIGIOUS   INSIGHT.  467 

feet  us  in  whom  it  exists,  is  this  good  will  in  us  good 
at  all.  In  so  far  as  we,  viewed  abstractly,  in  our 
separateness  from  God,  are  good,  we  then  do  indeed 
try  to  realize  that  life  of  God  in  which  we  are  all 
the  time  an  element.  For  us  this  is  progress.  This 
progress  is  the  form  taken  temporarily  in  us  by  the 
good  will.  But  for  God  this  is  no  real  progress. 
Therefore  is  it  indeed  true  that  the  moral  insight  in 
us  must  lead  us  to  aim  at  progress  in  goodness,  just 
as,  on  the  other  side,  the  rational  element  in  us  leads 
us  to  aim  at  progress  in  knowledge.  But,  meanwhile, 
our  moral  progress  and  our  rational  progress,  mere 
minor  facts  happening  at  a  moment  of  time,  are  but 
insignificant  elements  in  the  infinite  life  in  which,  as 
a  whole,  there  is  and  can^  be  no  progress,  but  only 
an  infinite  variety  of  the  forms  of  the  good  will  and 
of  the  higher  knowledge. 

And  so  consciousness  has  given  us  in  concrete 
form  solutions  of  our  two  deepest  philosophic  prob- 
lems. The  possibility  of  error,  necessitating  an  in- 
clusive thought,  is  illustrated  for  us  by  our  own  con- 
scious thought,  which  can  include  true  and  false  ele- 
ments in  the  unity  of  one  clear  and  true  thought  at 
any  moment.  And  the  possibility  and  necessity  of 
moral  evil,  demanding  a  real  distinction  between 
good  and  evil,  a  hateful  opposition  that  seems  at  first 
sight  fatal  to  our  religious  need  for  the  supremacy 
of  goodness  in  the  united  world,  is  illustrated  for  us 
in  a  way  that  solves  this  whole  trouble,  namely,  in 
the  unity  of  the  conscious  moral  act.  There  at  the 
one  moment  are  good  and  evil,  warring,  implacable, 
yet  united  in  the  present  momentary  triumph  of  the 


468         THE   RELIGIOUS   ASPECT    OF   PHILOSOPHY. 

good  will.  A  world  in  which  this  strife,  this  vic- 
tory, this  absolute  rest  above  the  real  strife  and  in 
the  midst  of  the  real  strife,  is  the  supreme  fact,  is 
the  perfect  world  that  religion  needs.  It  is  a  world 
of  the  true  Life  of  God. 


VI. 

And  our  insight  appeals  not  only  to  our  general 
religious  needs.  It  comes  with  its  truth  home  to  the 
individual  man.  It  demands  that  we  consider  what 
our  individual  life  is  really  worth  when  it  is  lived  in 
the  presence  of  this  Infinite  Judge.  O  man,  what 
is  this  thy  daily  life  !  Thou  livest  for  the  applause 
or  in  fear  of  the  blame  of  thy  neighbors.  An  unkind 
word  cuts  thee  to  the  quick.  A  little  public  favor, 
or  the  approving  word  of  a  friend,  is  worth  half  thy 
soul  to  thee.  And  all  the  while  thou  knowest  not 
that  One  infinitely  greater  than  multitudes  of  neigh- 
bors is  here,  not  above  thee  only,  nor  afar  in  the 
heavens,  but  pervading  thy  every  thought.  And  that 
all-pervading  Thought  judges  thee  as  these  neigh- 
bors never  can.  Myriads  of  their  blunders  about 
thee  are  as  nothing  to  an  atom  of  this  infinite  Truth. 
That  rain-drop  yonder  in  the  sunshine  is  not  more 
filled  with  the  light,  than  are  all  the  most  hidden  re- 
cesses of  thy  heart  filled  with  that  Infinite  Presence. 
No  one  of  us  is  more  famous  than  his  neighbor ;  for 
no  one  is  known  save  by  God,  and  to  him  all  alike 
are  known.  To  be  sure,  to  know  this  is  the  same 
as  understanding  rightly,  that  thou  art  in  truth  what 
thou  art.  All  truth  is  truth  because  it  is  known  by 


THE   RELIGIOUS   INSIGHT.  469 

a  conscious  Thought :  therefore  whatsoever  thou  art, 
whether  it  is  consciously  or  unconsciously  existent  in 
thee,  is  known  to  the  all-seeing  Universal  Conscious- 
ness. But  commonplace  as  this  seems  to  the  philos- 
opher, is  it  not  more  than  a  mere  commonplace  to 
thee,  if  thou  lovest  genuine  righteousness  ?  For  is  it 
not  something  to  feel  that  thy  life  is,  all  of  it,  in 
God  and  for  God  ?  No  one  else  knows  thee.  Alone 
thou  wanderest  in  a  dead  world,  save  for  this  Pres- 
ence. These  other  men,  how  can  they  know  thee  ? 
They  love  thee  or  scorn  thee  or  hate  thee,  but  none 
of  them  love  or  scorn  or  hate  thee  for  what  thou  art. 
Whatever  they  hold  of  thee,  it  is  an  accident.  If 
they  knew  more  of  thee,  doubtless  they  would  think 
otherwise  of  thee.  Do  they  love  thee  ?  Then  they 
know  thee  not  well  enough,  nor  do  they  see  thy 
meanness  and  thy  vileness,  thy  selfishness  and  thy 
jealousy  and  thy  malice.  If  they  saw  these,  surely 
they  would  hate  thee.  But  do  they  hate  thee  ? 
Then  thou  callest  them  unjust.  Doubtless  they  are 
so.  Some  chance  word  of  thine,  a  careless  look  or 
gesture,  an  accident  of  fortune,  a  trifling  fault,  these 
they  have  remembered  ;  and  therefore  do  they  hate 
thee.  If  they  knew  better  things  of  thee,  perhaps 
they  would  love  thee. 

Thus  contradictory  is  thy  life  with  them.  And  yet 
thou  must  labor  that  the  good  may  triumph  near 
thee  by  thy  effort.  Now  in  all  this  work  who  shall 
be  thy  true  friend  ?  Whose  appr^v^l  shall  ^tip.nnr. 
age  thee  ?  Thy  neighbor's  ?  Nay,  but  it  is  thy  duty 
always  to  suspect  thy  neighbor's  opinion  of  thee. 
He  is  a  corrupt  judge,  or  at  best  an  ignorant  judge. 


470         THE   RELIGIOUS   ASPECT   OF   PHILOSOPHY. 

He  sees  not  thy  heart.  He  is  a  respecter  of  persons. 
He  is  too  often  a  bundle  of  whims.  If  he  also  pro- 
fesses to  be  trying  to  serve  righteousness,  it  is  thy 
duty  to  have  ready  faith  in  his  good  intent,  if  that 
be  possible  for  thee  ;  but  by  all  means  doubt  his 
wisdom  about  thee,  and  thine  about  him.  If  he 
praises  thee  for  thy  righteousness,  listen  not  willingly 
to  his  praise.  It  will  deceive  thee.  He  will  most 
praise  thee  when  thou  inwardly  art  not  righteous. 
If  he  blames  thee  for  evil,  let  it  warn  thee ;  for  if 
he  is  not  right  now,  he  doubtless  soon  will  be.  But 
take  it  not  too  much  to  heart.  He  is  ignorant  of 
thee.  He  talks  of  thee  as  he  might  talk  of  the  other 
side  of  the  moon,  unless  indeed  he  talks  of  thee  just 
as  man  in  general,  and  not  as  to  thy  particular  acts. 
Trust  him  not  in  all  these  things.  Realize  his  needs 
as  thou  canst,  strive  to  aid  hint  in  being  righteous, 
use  him  as  an  instrument  for  the  extension  of  good- 
ness ;  but  trust  not  his  judgment  of  thee.  Who 
then  is,  as  the  true  judge  of  thy  worth,  thy  only  per- 
fect friend  ? 

The  Divine  Thought.  There  is  the  opinion  of 
thee  to  which  thou  canst  look  up.  To  be  sure  it  is 
revealed  to  thee  only  in  thy  consciousness  of  what 
righteousness  is  and  of  what  truth  is.  Nowhere  else 
hast  thou  a  guide  that  can  do  more  for  thee  than  to 
help  to  quicken  thy  insight.  But,  then,  thy  relig- 
ious comfort  is  to  be,  not  that  the  moral  law  is  thun- 
dered down  from  mountain  -  tops  as  if  some  vast 
town-crier  were  talking,  but  that  when  thou  seekest 
to  do  right,  the  Infinite  all-seeing  One  knows  and 
approves  thee.  If  thou  lovest  righteousness  for  its 


THE  RELIGIOUS  INSIGHT.  471 

own  sake,  then  this  will  comfort  thee.  If  not,  if 
thou  seekest  sugar-plums,  seek  them  not  in  the  home 
of  the  Infinite.  Go  among  thy  fellow-men  and  be  a 
successful  hypocrite  and  charlatan,  and  thou  shalt 
have  gaping  and  wonderment  and  sugar  -  plums 
enough. 

Herein  then  lies  the  invitation  of  the  Infinite  to 
us,  that  it  is,  and  that  it  knows  us.  No  deeper  sanc- 
tion is  there  for  true  righteousness  than  this  knowl- 
edge that  one  is  serving  the  Eternal.  Yet  when  we 
say  all  this,  are  we  simply  doing  that  which  we  spoke 
of  in  the  opening  chapter  of  this  work  ?  Are  we 
but  offering  snow  to  appease  the  religious  hunger  ? 
Is  this  doctrine  too  cold,  too  abstract,  too  far-off  ? 
Cold  and  abstract  and  far-off  is  indeed  the  proof  of 
it.  But  that  was  philosophy.  That  was  not  the  re- 
ligious aspect  of  our  doctrine,  but  only  the  prepara- 
tion for  showing  the  religious  aspect  of  philosophy. 
Is  the  doctrine  itself,  however,  once  gained,  so  re- 
mote from  the  natural  religious  emotion  ?  What 
does  a  man  want  when  he  looks  to  the  world  for  re^ 
ligious  support  ?  Does  he  want  such  applause  as\ 
blind  crowds  give  men,  such  flattery  as  designing! 
people  shower  upon  them,  such  sympathy  as  even  the 
cherished  but  prejudiced  ]ove  of  one's  nearest  friends 
pours  out  for  him  ?  Nay,  if  he  seeks  merely  this, 
is  he  quite  unselfishly  righteous  ?  Can  he  not  get 
all  that  if  he  wants  it,  wholly  apart  from  religion  ? 
And  if  he  looks  for  reward,  can  he  not  get  that  also 
otherwise  ?  But  what  his  true  devotion  to  the  moral 
law  ardently  desires  is  not  to  be  alone.  Approval! 
for  what  really  deserves  approval  he  needs,  approval 


472         THE   RELIGIOUS    ASPECT    OF   PHILOSOPHY. 

from  one  who  truly  knows  him.     Well,  our  doctrine 
says  that  he  gets  it.     Just  as  deep,  as  full,  as  rich,  ' 
as  true  approval  as  expresses  the  full  worth  of  his  ( 
act,  —  this  he  has  for  all  eternity  from  the  Infinite. 
To  feed  upon  that  truth  is  to  eat  something  better  j 
than  snow,  but  as  pure  as  the  driven  snow.     To  love  \ 
that  truth  is  to  love  God. 

We  spoke  in  the  former  book  of  the  boundless 
magnitude  of  human  life  as  it  impresses  itself  upon 
one  who  first  gains  the  moral  insight.  To  many 
this  first  devotion  to  human  life  seems  itself  enough 
for  a  religion.  But  then  one  goes  beyond  this  point, 
and  says  that  human  life  has,  after  all,  very  much 
that  is  base  and  petty  in  it.  Here  is  not  the  ideal. 
"  Would  that  there  were  a  higher  life  !  To  that  we 
would  devote  ourselves.  We  will  serve  humanity, 
but  how  can  we  worship  it?"  Such  is  the  thought 
of  many  an  ardent  soul  that  seeks  no  personal  re- 
wards in  serving  the  good,  but  that  does  seek  some 
great  Eeality  that  shall  surely  be  worthy  of  service. 
To  such,  our  religious  insight  points  out  this  higher 
reality.  You  that  have  been  willing  to  devote  your- 
selves to  humanity,  here  is  a  Life  greater  in  infinite 
degree  than  humanity.  And  now  is  it  not  a  help  to 
know  that  truly  to  serve  humanity  is  just  the  same 
as  to  serve  this  Infinite  ?  For  whatever  had  seemed 
disheartening  in  the  baseness  and  weakness  of  man 
loses  its  discouraging  darkness  now  that  all  is  trans- 
figured in  this  Infinite  light. 

Let  us  then  be  encouraged  in  our  work  by  this 
great  Truth.  But  let  us  not  spend  too  much  time 
in  merely  contemplating  this  Truth.  We,  whose 


THE  RELIGIOUS  INSIGHT.  473 

lives  are  to  be  lived  injpl,  —  it  is  not  good  that  we 
should  brood  over  even  an  infinite  Thought.  For  in 
our  finite  minds  it  will  soon  become  petty,  unless  we 
realize  it  chiefly  through  our  acts.  Let  us  then  go 
about  our  business.  For  every  man  has  business; 
and  desire,  such  as  they  are. 

As  we  turn  away  then  for  the  time  from  our  con- 
templation, we  have  one  last  word  yet  as  to  these 
practical  consequences  of  our  view.  If  the  reader 
follows  us  at  all  in  our  argument,  we  want  him  also 
to  follow  us  into  the  practical  application  of  it  to 
life.  To  work  for  the  extension  of  the  moral  insight 
is,  we  have  said,  the  chief  present  duty  of  man  in  so- 
ciety. All  else  is  preparation  for  this  work,  or  else 
is  an  anticipation  of  the  higher  stage  when,  if  we 
ever  grow  up  to  that  level,  we  shall  have  our  further 
work  to  do  in  the  light  of  the  insight  itself.  But 
this  chief  present  work  of  ours,  this  extension  of  the 
moral  insight,  is  best  furthered  by  devotion  to  our 
individual  vocations,  coupled  with  strict  loyalty  to 
the  relations  upon  which  society  is  founded.  The 
work  thus  set  before  us  demands  the  sacrifice  of 
many  ideal  emotional  experiences  to  the  service  of 
the  Highest.  Our  comfort  however  in  it  all  must  be 
that  the  Highest  is  there  above  us,  forget  it  as  we 
may.  If  the  reader  accepts  all  this,  then  with  us 
he  has  the  assurance  that,  whatever  becomes  of  the 
old  creeds  in  the  present  religious  crisis,  the  founda- 
tions of  genuinely  religious  faith  are  sure. 

Whenever  we  must  pause  again  in  our  work  for 
religious  support,  and  whenever  we  are  worn  out 
with  the  jargon  of  the  schools,  we  can  rest  once 


474         THE   RELIGIOUS   ASPECT   OF   PHILOSOPHY. 

more  for  a  time  in  this  contemplation  of  the  Eternal 
Truth.  Hie  breve  plangitur.  But  not  so  is  it  in 
God's  life.  Our  problems  may  be  hard,  but  there 
all  is  solved.  Our  lives  may  be  poor  and  contempt- 
ible, but  there  all  is  wealth  and  fullness  of  worth. 
Our  efforts  may  often  prove  vain,  but  there  naught 
exists  that  is  vanity.  For  the  imperfection  of  the 
finite  is  but  the  fragment  of  the  Infinite  Whole 
where  there  is  no  true  imperfection.  Is  it  not  a  Re- 
ligion to  feel  this  ?  And  we  shall  then  turn  from 
such  a  contemplation  once  again  as  we  do  now,  to 
look  with  fresher  courage  at  this  boundless,  tossing 
sea  of  human  life  about  us.  This  is  not  itself  the 
Divine,  but  over  it  all  God's  winds  are  blowing. 
And  to  our  eyes  it  is  boundless.  Let  us  go  down 
into  this  great  sea  and  toil,  fearing  no  storm,  but 
seeking  to  find  there  treasures  that  shall  be  copies, 
however  faint,  of  that  which  is  Eternal. 


EPILOGUE. 

YET  some  reader,  to  whom,  as  to  the  author,  phil- 
osophic questions  are  directly  matters  of  vocation, 
may  possibly  linger.  To  him  are  due  one  or  two 
statements  more,  to  set  at  rest  certain  of  his  doubts 
about  our  meaning.  Perhaps  he  will  ask  the  very 
natural,  yet,  after  all,  not  very  fruitful,  question, 
"  Is  the  foregoing  theory  of  things  Theism  or  Pan- 
theism? Has  it  been  your  purpose  to  defend  the 
essential  portions  of  the  older  Theistic  doctrines,  or 
to  alter  them  in  favor  of  some  newer  faith  ?  "  This 
question  expresses  a  difficulty  that  some  plain  people\ 
must  feel  when  they  read,  not  merely  this  book,  but( 
also  many  recent  discussions.  There  are  writers  who 
have  undertaken  to  defend  Theism,  and  who  have  ac- 
tually in  all  sincerity  argued  for  the  necessity  of  the 
Universal  Thought.  The  plain  people  have  reason 
to  suspect  such  of  trying  to  substitute  for  the  "  God 
of  our  Fathers"  something  else,  to  be  called  by  the 
same  name,  and  so  to  be  passed  off  for  the  same 
thing.  We  therefore  answer  very  plainly  that  we 
desire  to  do  nothing  of  the  sort.  If  in  the  foregoing 
we  have  on  occasion  used  the  word  God,  no  reader 
is  obliged  to  suppose  that  our  idea  agrees  with  his 
idea,  for  we  have  fully  explained  what  our  idea 
means.  We  repeat :  As  my  thought  at  any  time, 
and  however  engaged,  combines  several  fragmentary 


476         THE   RELIGIOUS   ASPECT   OF   PHILOSOPHY. 

thoughts  into  the  unity  of  one  conscious  moment,  so, 
we  affirm,  does  the  Universal  Thought  combine  the 
thoughts  of  all  of  us  into  an  absolute  unity  of 
thought,  together  with  all  the  objects  and  all  the 
thoughts  about  these  objects  that  are,  or  have  been, 
or  will  be,  or  can  be,  in  the  Universe.  This  Uni- 
versal Thought  is  what  we  have  ventured,  for  the 
sake  of  convenience,  to  call  God.  It  is  not  the  God 
of  very  much  of  the  traditional  theology.  It  is  the 
/God  of  the  idealistic  tradition  from  Plato  down- 
|  wards.  Our  proof  for  it  is  wholly  different  from 
those  baseless  figments  of  the  apologetic  books,  the 
design  -  argument,  and  the  general  argument  from 
causality.  Since  Kant,  those  arguments  must  be 
abandoned  by  all  critical  philosophers,  and  we  have 
indicated  something  of  their  weakness.  They  have 
been  aptly  compared  to  mediaeval  artillery  on  a 
modern  battle-field.  We  accept  the  comparison. 
Kant  gave  to  modern  philosophy  new  instruments, 
and  these  it  is  our  duty  to  apply  as  we  can  to  the 
old  questions  that  the  whole  history  of  thought  has 
been  trying  to  understand.  Our  special  proof  for 
the  existence  of  an  Universal  Thought  has  been 
based,  in  the  foregoing,  upon  an  analysis  of  the  na- 
ture of  truth  and  error  as  necessary  conceptions.  We 
do  not  regard  the  Universal  Thought  as  in  any  com- 
monly recognized  sense  a  Creator.  A  creator  would 
be  finite,  and  his  existence  would  have  to  be  learned 
from  experience.  The  Universal  Thought  is  infinite, 
and  its  existence  is  proved  independently  of  experi- 
ence. For  the  rest,  we  have  insisted  that  experience 
furnishes  no  evidence  of  single  creative  powers  that 


EPILOGUE.  477 

are  at  once  unlimited  and  good.  We  have  however 
shown  how  all  the  Powers  that  be  exist  as  necessary- 
facts  in  the  Infinite  Thought,  and  how,  apart  from 
this  thought,  nothing  is  that  is.  Such  is  our  concep- 
tion. It  is  no  new  one  in  philosophy.  We  have  tried 
with  no  small  labor,  and  after  teflious  doubting,  to 
make  it  our  own.  We  have  independently  given 
our  own  reasons  for  it.  And  we  have  asserted  that 
here  is  an  object  of  infinite  religious  worth. 

And  now  we  must  add  that  we  are  quite  indiffer-i 
ent  whether  anybody  calls  all  this  Theism  or  Pan-] 
theism.  It  differs  from  the  commoner  traditional 
forms  of  both.  Both  usually  consider  God  as  a 
Power,  and  either  leave  him  off  on  one  side  to  push 
things  occasionally,  or  to  set  them  going  at  the  out- 
set, or  else  identify  him  with  his  products.  The  for- 
mer way  of  conceiving  God  is  never  more  than  half- 
philosophic.  The  latter  way  is  apt  to  degenerate 
into  wholly  poetical  rhapsodies.  We  take  neither 
of  these  ways.  For  us  Causation  is  a  very  subordi- 
nate idea  in  philosophy.  It  expresses  only  one  form 
of  the  rational  unity  of  things,  and  that  an  imper- 
fect form.  The  world  of  the  Powers  is  not  yet  an 
universe.  Thought  must  be  truer  than  Power,  com- 
prehending all  the  Powers,  and  much  more  besides, 
in  its  infinite  unity.  God  as  Power  would  be  noth- 
ing, or  finite.  God  as  Thought  can  be  and  is  all  in 
all.  And  if  this  is  philosophy,  traditional  Theism 
can  do  what  it  wishes  to  do  about  the  matter. 

In  short,  the  present  doctrine  is  the  doctrine  that 
in  the  beginning  was  the  Word,  and  the  Word  was 
with  God,  and  the  Word  was  God.  So  far,  said  St. 


478         THE   RELIGIOUS   ASPECT   OF   PHILOSOPHY. 

Augustine,  Plato  had  gone.  So  far  we  have  gone. 
Beyond  that,  said  St.  Augustine,  the  truth  was  not 
revealed  to  human  wisdom,  but  only  to  humble  faith. 
Beyond  that,  with  the  rational  consequences  that  we 
have  been  able  to  draw  from  it  in  the  foregoing,  we 
are  frankly  agnostic.  If  any  man  knows  more  about 
the  Powers  in  the  world  than  science  has  found  out 
by  patient  examination  of  the  facts,  let  him  rejoice 
in  his  knowledge.  We  are  not  in  possession  of  such 
knowledge.  We  believe  in  the  Conservation  of  the 
physical  forces,  in  the  Law  of  Evolution  as  it  is  at 
present  and  for  a  limited  past  time  found  to  express 
the  facts  of  nature,  and  in  the  fact  of  the  Dissipation 
of  Energy.  All  this  we  believe  as  the  scientifically 
probable  view,  and  we  do  so  on  the  authority  of  cer- 
tain students  of  physical  science,  who,  having  exam- 
ined the  facts,  seem  to  agree  upon  so  much  as  capa- 
ble of  popular  exposition.  We  believe  in  such  other 
results  of  science  as  are  known  to  us.  But  beyond 
this  nothing  as  to  the  Powers  in  the  world  is  clear  to 
us.  We  know  nothing  about  individual  immortal- 
ity, nothing  about  any  endless  future  progress  of  our 
species,  nothing  about  the  certainty  that  what  men 
call  from  without  goodness  must  empirically  triumph 
just  here  in  this  little  world  about  us.  All  that  is 
dark.  We  know  only  that  the  highest  Truth  is  al- 
ready attained  from  all  eternity  in  the  Infinite 
Thought,  and  that  in  and  for  that  Thought  the  vic- 
tory that  overcometh  the  world  is  once  for  all  won. 
Whatever  happens  to  our  poor  selves,  we  know  that 
the  Whole  is  perfect.  And  this  knowledge  gives 
us  peace.  We  know  that  our  moral  Vindicator  liv- 


EPILOGUE.  479 

eth,  and  that  in  his  sight  all  the  good  that  we  do  is 
not  labor  lost. 

Yet  the  purpose  of  these  chapters  is  not  to  give 
at  any  point  a  mere  negation,  even  when  we  speak 
of  the  traditional  theology.  We  do  not  want  to  ex- 
aggerate our  quarrel  with  anybody.  If  thinkers  who 
accept  some  traditional  form  of  theology  find  truth 
or  help  in  our  doctrine,  we  shall  be  glad.  After 
all,  the  religious  interest  wants,  not  so  much  this  or 
that  view  about  some  man's  special  creed,  but  a 
foundation  for  the  faith  that  somehow  righteousness 
is  in  deepest  truth  triumphant  in  the  world.  If  there 
is  no  proof,  then,  as  we  said  in  Chapter  IX.,  we  must 
resort  to  the  Postulates.  If  we  can  get  proof,  so 
much  the  better. 

Thus,  however,  we  have  suggested  to  ourselves  an- 
other question.  These  Postulates  of  Chapter  IX., 
what  has  become  of  them  now  ?  Are  they  wholly 
lost  in  our  insight  ?  No  indeed.  They  remain  just 
what  they  were,  rational  forms  of  our  activity,  not 
perfect  in  their  rationality,  but  constantly  valuable 
to  us  in  our  work.  The  scientific  postulates  are  not 
superseded,  but  rather  only  strengthened,  by  the 
insight  into  the  ultimate  rationality  of  things.  They 
become  now  the  assurance  that  there  must  be  a  ra- 
tional solution  to  every  scientific  problem,  and  that 
the  simplest  solution,  being  the  most  rational,  is  the 
most  probable,  in  case  it  is  actually  adequate  to  all 
the  facts.  Just  as  before,  it  remains  true  of  us 
finite  beings  that  our  finite  external  world  is  at  each 
instant  the  product  of  our  activity,  working  with  the 
postulates,  upon  the  material  of  our  sensations.  And 


480         THE   RELIGIOUS  ASPECT   OF   PHILOSOPHY. 

that  activity  remains  as  before  the  proper  object  of  a 
moral  judgment.  Only  now  we  see  that  the  highest 
form  of  our  activity  is  likely  to  be  the  one  most  con- 
forming to  the  truth.  What  remains  true  of  the 
scientific  postulates,  remains  true  of  the  religious 
postulates.  They  are  not  superseded.  For  what  they 
can  still  do  for  us  is  to  insist  that  our  idea  of  the  In- 
finite shall  not  remain  a  cold,  barren  abstraction, 
but  that  we  shall  appeal  to  our  experience  for  evi- 
dence of  what  is  truly  highest  and  best,  and  that  we 
shall  then  say  :  "  The  highest  conceptions  that  I  get 
from  experience  of  what  goodness  and  beauty  are, 
the  noblest  life  that  I  can  imagine,  the  completest 
blessedness  that  I  can  think  of,  all  these  things  are 
but  faint  suggestions  of  a  truth  that  is  infinitely  re- 
alized in  the  Divine,  that  knows  all  truth.  What- 
ever perfection  there  is  suggested  in  these  things, 
that  He  must  fully  know  and  experience."  There- 
fore the  religious  postulates  can  accompany  us  every- 
where, making  all  our  experience  appear  to  us  as  an 
ever-fresh  lesson  concerning  the  mind  of  God. 

The  postulates,  then,  we  retain,  with  the  insight. 
We  abandon,  however,  the  use  of  these  postulates 
to  demonstrate  further  special  articles  of  faith  as 
to  supernatural  powers  or  events  of  any  sort.  We 
know  of  no  miracle  save  the  Infinite  himself.  And 
so  we  have  no  interest  in  many  of  the  forms  of  pop- 
ular idealism.  To  prove  that  this  world  is  the  home 
of  a  Spiritual  Life,  many  good  people  have  been  and 
are  concerned  to  prove  that  certain  phenomena  which 
we  see  about  us  are  in  and  of  themselves  direct  evi- 
dences of  the  spiritual  nature  of  things.  To  such 


EPILOGUE.  481 

persons  a  Spirit  that  is  not  constantly  producing 
noteworthy  effects,  and  so  getting  himself  into  the 
newspapers,  would  seem  unreal.  Therefore,  to  such 
persons  Religious  Idealism  depends  for  its  life  and 
warmth  upon  the  vividness  and  the  impressiveness 
of  these  phenomenal  indications  of  the  action  of  the 
great  Spirit.  Such  persons,  if  they  have  given  up 
traditional  superstitions,  still  find  their  delight  in 
dwelling  on  the  mystery  of  "  vital  force,"  on  the  oc- 
currence of  all  sorts  of  wonderful  things,  on  the  the- 
ories of  occult  powers,  or  of  ethereal  essences.  To 
them  one  of  the  best  evidences  of  the  spiritual  na- 
ture of  things  is  the  inability  of  the  biologist  to 
tell  us  under  what  conditions  life  could  be  produced 
from  dead  matter.  The  mysterious  nature  of  ner- 
vous action,  the  influence  of  the  mind  upon  the 
body,  and,  above  all,  the  occurrence  of  certain 
strange  emotional  experiences  in  us,  such  as  the  vis- 
ions of  mystics,  these  are  to  them  the  main  proof 
that  the  world  is  divine  and  is  full  of  spiritual  life. 
We  do  not  sympathize  with  this  method  of  idealism. 
We  respect  its  good  intentions,  but  we  are  unwilling 
to  look  upon  it  as  rationally  significant.  For  us  it 
makes  absolutely  no  difference  in  our  faith  about 
the  ultimate  spiritual  nature  of  things,  whether  the 
world  that  we  see  makes  our  hair  stand  on  end  or 
not,  or  whether  the  biologists  ever  come  to  succeed 
in  making  living  matter  or  not.  That  we  can  make 
a  fire,  does  not  prove  the  world  less  divine.  Nor 
would  the  truth  of  things  be  less  spiritual,  if  we 
could  also  manufacture  not  only  protoplasm,  but 
whole  whales  or  Shakespeares  in  our  laboratories. 

31 


482         THE    RELIGIOUS   ASPECT   OF   PHILOSOPHY. 

If  we  could  do  so,  materialism  as  a  philosophical 
doctrine  would  remain  just  as  absurd  as  it  now  is. 
Genuine  idealism,  like  the  foregoing,  is  utterly  care- 
less whether  this  or  that  particular  surprising  thing 
appears  in  the  phenomenal  world,  since  it  once  for 
all  knows  that  the  Whole  is  divine,  an  eternal  sur- 
prise. It  seeks  no  confirmation  from  the  laborato- 
ries ;  but  only  for  illustrations  of  rationality ;  nor 
for  its  own  part  does  it  venture  to  dictate  to  the 
special  workers  in  science  what  they  shall  find.  It 
is  not  forced  to  beg  Nature  to  contain  some  occult 
agency,  some  vague  ethereal  essence,  or  some  myste- 
rious and  wondrous  visible  being,  whose  presence 
shall  be  a  guaranty  to  the  gaping  onlooker  that 
there  exists  an  Ideal.  All  this  mendicant  idealism 
our  view  rejects  as  unworthy  of  any  clear-headed 
thinker.  It  says,  "  Look  at  the  facts  as  they  are. 
Study  them  as  experience  gives  them.  Know  them 
in  their  naked  commonplace  reality.  But  know  also 
that  the  Ideal  Divine  Life  dwells  in  them  and 
throughout  their  whole  boundless  realm." 

In  Plato's  "  Parmenides,"  the  young  Socrates 
confesses  that  he  sometimes  hesitates  to  say  that 
there  is  an  Idea  for  everything,  even  for  mud.  He 
is  rebuked  for  this  fear  that  men  may  laugh  at  him. 
He  is  told  that  mud  also  is  rational.  Even  so  we 
must  fear  nobody's  laughter  in  such  a  matter.  We 
must  see  the  Divine  everywhere.  And  therefore  we 
must  not  be  going  about  faithlessly  looking  for  some- 
thing that  shall  be  wondrous  enough  to  force  us  to 
say  "  Here  is  God." 


EPILOGUE.  483 

And  now,  last  of  all,  as  the  writer  bids  farewell 
to  this  single  lingering  fellow-student,  he  cannot  re- 
frain from  suggesting  to  so  patient  a  friend  one  lit- 
tle thought  more  concerning  the  proof  that  has  been 
given  for  the  doctrine  of  these  later  pages  of  our 
discussion.  "  Possibly  it  is  all  false,"  the  fellow- 
student  may  say.  "  This  fair  picture  of  a  Truth  that 
is  also  Goodness,  may  be  but  another  illusion."  Be 
it  so,  dear  friend,  if  we  have  said  nothing  to  con- 
vince thee.  Perchance  all  this  our  later  argument 
is  illusion.  Only  remember :  If  it  is  Error,  then, 
as  we  have  shown  thee,  it  is  Error  because  and  only 
because  the  Infinite  knows  it  to  be  such.  Apart 
from  that  knowledge,  our  thought  would  be  no  error. 
At  least,  then,  the  Infinite  knows  what  we  have  at- 
tributed to  it.  If  it  rejects  our  ideal,  then  doubtless 
there  is  something  imperfect,  not  about  the  Infinite, 
but  about  our  Ideal.  And  so  at  worst  we  are  like 
a  child  who  has  come  to  the  palace  of  the  King  on 
the  day  of  his  wedding,  bearing  roses  as  a  gift  to 
grace  the  feast.  For  the  child,  waiting  innocently 
to  see  whether  the  King  will  not  appear  and  praise 
the  welcome  flowers,  grows  at  last  weary  with  watch- 
ing all  day  and  with  listening  to  harsh  words  outside 
the  palace  gate,  amid  the  jostling  crowd.  And  so 
in  the  evening  it  falls  fast  asleep  beneath  the  great 
dark  walls,  unseen  and  forgotten  ;  and  the  wither- 
ing roses  by  and  by  fall  from  its  lap,  and  are  scat- 
tered by  the  wind  into  the  dusty  highway,  there  to 
be  trodden  under  foot  and  destroyed.  Yet  all  that 
happens  only  because  there  are  infinitely  fairer 


484         THE   RELIGIOUS   ASPECT    OF   PHILOSOPHY. 

treasures  within  the  palace  than  the  ignorant  child 
could  bring.  The  King  knows  of  this,  yes,  and  of 
ten  thousand  other  proffered  gifts  of  loyal  subjects. 
But  he  needs  them  not.  Rather  are  all  things  from 
eternity  his  own, 


14  DAY  USE 

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